Sun 19 December 2021:
The US embassy in Dhaka announced on Sunday that it has donated 1.78 million more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to Bangladesh in an effort to assist the South Asian country in expanding its immunization drive to young people aged 12 and up.
“With this shipment, the American people have now donated a total of 18.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Bangladesh,” the embassy said a statement, adding that the jabs had been sent via COVAX, an international facility to boost vaccine equity.
US support to vaccination in Bangladesh also includes the training of nearly 7,000 healthcare professionals to safely administer vaccines, as well as donations of cold-chain freezer trucks where the vaccines are stored, and the provision of freezers and other equipment for health facilities to “properly store and transport COVID-19 vaccines across the country,” it added.
“The United States will continue to donate millions more doses of Pfizer vaccines and stand together with Bangladesh in its aim to vaccinate 40% of the country’s eligible population by the end of this year,” US Ambassador Earl Robert Miller was quoted as saying in the statement.
The ongoing Pfizer vaccine donations are part of a larger US commitment to lead the global COVID-19 response by providing 1 billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine around the world by 2022, according to the statement.
Following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s approval to use Pfizer jabs as third vaccine doses amid fears of the omicron variant spreading, Bangladesh launched a booster shot campaign against the coronavirus on Sunday.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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