UNB, Dhaka: Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Friday night received the first consignment of 2.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine under the COVAX framework.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl R Miller, Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, Secretary of Health Services Division Lokman Hossain Miah, and other high officials of the Bangladesh government were also present.
The second consignment will reach Dhaka on Saturday morning.
These 2.5 million vaccine doses are part of the US government’s recent allocation of 25 million vaccine doses for countries in Asia through COVAX.
The foreign minister, health minister and high officials of the Bangladesh government are also scheduled to receive the first batch of 2 million Sinopharm vaccine doses purchased from China by the Bangladesh government.
The consignment is expected to reach Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at around 1am in two aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, said Hualong Yan, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka.
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming will remain present at the airport.
The government has so far approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA/Germany) and Crona Vac (China) vaccines.
