BD urgently seeks 1.6m AstraZeneca doses from UK

After its request to the United States, Bangladesh has urged the United Kingdom to help it by providing vaccine doses to meet its emergency needs as the second dose vaccination is disrupted in Bangladesh.

"I’m not asking for too much, I’m only asking for 1.6m AstraZeneca doses that they have, they should immediately disburse those to Bangladesh so that people can have their second dose," Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said in an interview with ITV News.

Dr Momen said his message to the UK government is that they should be more sincere. "They should help their Commonwealth member states."

He said Bangladesh is a good friend of the UK and so many Bangladeshis contribute to the UK economy. "… so the UK should come forward."

Speaking to ITV News, Dr Momen described the vaccine situation in Bangladesh as a "crisis", adding: "We’re desperate."

Bangladesh entered into a deal with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to purchase 30 million doses of a potential vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca for Covid-19.

Bangladesh was supposed to get five million doses of the vaccine per month as the SII and Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharma signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for priority delivery of the vaccine doses.

Bangladesh sought at least 3 million doses of the vaccine under the agreement to address the immediate demand in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has so far received only 7 million of Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine doses produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) through its contract. Bangladesh also received 3.3 million doses of the vaccine as a bilateral partnership gift.

"India is facing a very critical situation, very alarming… They’re finding it difficult, we can understand it,” Dr Momen said. "So, they’re failing to distribute the vaccine they promised to send us."

He told ITV News that the Bangladeshi government has appealed directly to the UK government for these required doses, but the request was ultimately rejected on the grounds that the UK government did not have the capacity.

"We’ve a belief that if the [UK] government tries, it can do it because they’ve the capacity," the Bangladesh Foreign Minister said.

Although Covid-19 daily cases in Bangladesh are relatively low and, according to the Foreign Minister, measures were in place to prevent the spread of the Indian variant into Bangladesh, the identification of six cases in Bangladesh earlier this month has concerned some experts.

Exploring Multiple Options

On Thursday, Dr Momen said the government is making its best efforts to get vaccines connecting multiple countries - the United States, China, Canada and Russia the UK - apart from its continuous request to India to meet Bangladesh's urgent needs.

He said the discussion with China is almost at the final stage while they are expecting a positive reply from the US on the vaccine front.

While talking to reporters at State guesthouse Padma, Dr Momen said there are people who could not take the second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine due to its short supply from India.

He also highlighted the ongoing discussion with Russia. "Hope, everything will be settled within a week."

Responding to a question on India, Dr Momen said India did never say that they will not give vaccines to Bangladesh but failed to deliver.

He said India was requested to provide vaccine doses to Bangladesh as a gift to meet its emergency need if India has an embargo on export.

"I should say we had a very positive discussion (with my Indian counterpart," Dr Momen said.