Bangladesh health ministry on Thursday signed a tripartite contract with the Serum Institute India and Beximco for importing 30 million doses of corona vaccine, developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca.
Beximco will bring the vaccine from India to Bangladesh as the local agent of Serum, the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world.
Health minister Zahid Maleque said that each dose would cost five US dollars and each person would require two doses.
He hoped that the Oxford-invented vaccine that the Serum Institute of India was producing would arrive in Dhaka by January after WHO approval of it.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is an adenovirus vector-based vaccine, currently undergoing large scale phase III trials in Brazil, US, UK and India, and is expected to receive approval by the end of 2020.
Serum Institute of India has already partnered with Oxford-AstraZeneca along with Gates Foundation and Gavi to produce more than a billion doses of the vaccine for global supply.
Beximco Pharmaceuticals in late August announced to join hands with Serum for bringing the vaccine.
