Pfizer vaccine likely to arrive Sunday night

Bangladesh is likely to receive 100,620 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Sunday night.

The consignment is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on a Qatar Airways flight at 11:20 pm, Public Relation Officer Maidul Islam Prodhan of the Ministry of Health confirmed on Thursday evening.

The vaccine doses are coming to Bangladesh under the Covax facility run by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Only hours before on Thursday, the health authorities approved the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use in Bangladesh.

The approval comes at a time when the country is battling the second wave of Covid-19 amid the supply shortage of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which was set to be delivered from neighbouring India.

The Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) announced the approval through a press release after an evaluation committee recommended the emergency use of the vaccine on May 25.