1st shipment of Chinese vaccine on way to Bangladesh

The first consignment of the Sinopharm vaccine is all set to depart China for Bangladesh.

Hualong Yan, the minister counselor and deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Dhaka, posted two photos of the cartooned vaccines on his Facebook handle on Monday evening.

It was seen in the photos that the vaccine doses were being loaded on cargos at Beijing International Airport.

In a separate Facebook post, the Chinese embassy said the Sinopharm vaccines are on the way to Bangladesh.

"The company just finished packing for the 500 thousand doses of gifted vaccines, which are heading to Beijing Capital International Airport in a cold-chain container truck now," it stated in the evening.  

Earlier, Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming officially announced the arrival of 5 lakh doses of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine on May 12.

"It's the latest outcome of China-Bangladesh anti-pandemic cooperation," he said during an interaction with the members of Diplomatic Correspondents' Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) virtually, according to a UNB report.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, giving the green light for this vaccine to be rolled out globally.

The Sinopharm vaccine is produced by Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd, subsidiary of China National Biotec Group (CNBG).

Bangladesh has kept up its intensified efforts to get Oxford-AstraZeneca and China's Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccines from India, the United States and China.