Dhaka needs vaccine diplomacy

Bangladesh should start dialogue with countries like China, Russia and United Kingdom to get Covid-19 vaccines as the current stock is expected to end shortly giving a blow to the country’s vaccination drive, according leading health economists, physicians, economists, diplomats and politicians.

Dr Liaquat Ali, Honorary Advisor at Pothikrit Institute of Health Studies (PIHS), while   speaking at a talk-show said that the Bangladesh government should explore new sources to collect Covid-19 vaccine to run the vaccination programme smoothly.

The corona situation in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan has worsened in the last few days with record numbers of deaths and infections.

Professor Dr Faridur Rahman Khan, chairman of Pharmacology department of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), while talking to media said that vaccine diplomacy involves regional and global politics and business worth billions of US dollars.

Countries like Turkey, Brazil, UAE, South Africa, KSA and a number of GULF, Latin American and African countries are using Chinese vaccine to combat corona disease. Defying the pressure of big South Asian country, Bangladesh should start effective negotiation with China, Russia and United Kingdom to get the vaccine.

The vaccination programme in Bangladesh is going very slowly as the country

has already administered over 54 lakh doses, out of 90 lakh doses, till date. The country, however, has started administering vaccination of second doses on Thursday which will continue during the lockdown.

Leading public health experts have opined that 80 per cent of the total population should be vaccinated as part of the hard community.

Meanwhile, with its own battle against the coronavirus taking a sharp turn for the worse, India has severely curtailed exports of Covid-19 vaccines, triggering setbacks for vaccination drives in many other countries.

The government of India is now holding back nearly all of the 2.4 million doses that the Serum Institute of India - the private company that is one of the world’s largest producers of the AstraZeneca vaccine - produces each day.

India is desperate for all the doses it can get. Infections are soaring, topping 80,000 per day, more than double the number less than two weeks ago. And the Indian vaccine drive has been sluggish, with less than 4 percent of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people getting a jab, far behind the rates of the United States, Britain and most European countries.

Just a few weeks ago, India was a major exporter of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and it was using that to exert influence in South Asia and around the world. More than 70 countries, from Djibouti to Britain, received vaccines made in India, with a total of more than 60 million doses. From mid January into March, not more than a few days passed between major vaccine shipments leaving India, according to newspapers.

But the size of its shipments abroad has greatly diminished in the past two weeks, according to data from India’s foreign ministry. And Covax, the programme set up by donor agencies to purchase vaccines for poorer nations, said recently  that it had told those countries that nearly 100 million doses expected in March and April would face delays because of “increased demand for Covid-19 vaccines in India.

Bangladesh on January 21, 2021 got 2 million doses of vaccines developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca from India as gift. It bought another 5 million doses of the vaccine from the Serum Institute of India which arrived in Dhaka on January 25. Another 1.2 million doses was gifted by Prime Minister of India.

As part of vaccination programme, Bangladesh is expected to get 68 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine from the Gavi-- The Vaccine Alliance -- under the global arrangement called Covax facility within 2021.

Bangladesh is likely to collect the vaccines from Gavi through financing and the health directorate will submit the National Vaccine Deployment Plan on Covid-19 vaccination as per the condition. But sources said  Bangladesh is unlikely to get 68 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine from the Gavi provided India stops exporting vaccines , health officials feared.

The cost for each shot of vaccine from Gavi arrangement has been estimated at US $1.62 to $2. "Those, who will submit the National Vaccine Deployment Plan first, will receive the vaccine supply first. Hopefully, we will submit it on the first day GAVI will start accepting the guideline," Dr Shamsul Haque Mridha, director of expanded programme for immunization (EPI), said recently.

Meanwhile, China recently offered to provide 100,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Bangladesh for emergency use.

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming made the offer when he met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the latter’s official residence Ganabhaban  recently. “The Chinese ambassador offered to provide 100,000 doses of the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use,” PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told reporters.

Li Jiming also conveyed a greeting message from Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Bangladesh prime minister. This amount of vaccine is additional to the Oxford vaccines from India's Serum Institute via Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Furthermore, the prime minister received a mural of Bangabandhu as a gift from the Chinese Embassy.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appreciated the gestures of the Chinese Embassy and the brass mural of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on his birth centenary

But with many poorer countries already unlikely to get broad access to vaccines until 2023 or 2024, an extended halt on exports from India could push those dates back even further, said Olivier Wouters, a professor of health policy at the London School of Economics who has been studying the global vaccine supply chain.

With new variants spreading, he said, it’s in the interests of all countries to work together to vaccinate the world.

“Many countries around the world, poorer ones in particular, are counting on India,” Mr. Wouters said. “Vaccine nationalism hurts us all.”.......

Meanwhile, Nepal, one of Asia’s poorest nations and next door to India, has had to halt its vaccination campaign. It was heavily reliant on doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine made at the Serum Institute, but with its national stockpile running low, Nepal stopped administering vaccines on March 17.

Dr. Jhalak Sharma, chief of the immunization department within Nepal’s health ministry, said the country had received a donation of one million doses from the Indian government and had already paid 80 percent of the price for the next two million but that didn’t seem to have made a difference.