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Bangladesh in 'desperate' search of vaccines, Momen tells CNN

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Bangladesh in 'desperate' search of vaccines, Momen tells CNN

UNB | Published: May 21, 2021 18:06:53 | Updated: May 21, 2021 21:14:20

- File Photo
- File Photo


Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Friday reached out to the global media to let the world know that Bangladesh looks for vaccines desperately and is ready to accept any shipment desperately from any country, including the United States.

"We need it desperately. If any shipment comes, we'll take it right away," he told CNN in a live interview.

Dr Momen said the big problem is that a large number of people in Bangladesh who took the first dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca could not take the second dose.

"Because we don't have any more. We can't give them the second dose. That's creating a lot of problems for us," said the Foreign Minister.
He said the government of Bangladesh is trying to get vaccines from other places and they were delighted when Bangladesh heard that the US will be distributing some of the AstraZeneca vaccines that they have.

Dr Momen said he had requested the US government and sent a letter to his counterpart US Secretary of State. "They agreed to give us."
Now the problem is, he said, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking a long time to approve the export of AstraZeneca.

Dr Momen said they are thankful to US President Joe Biden for announcing that the USA will be distributing some of the Astrazeneca vaccine doses to developing countries, pretty large numbers - 60 million plus 20 around - 80 million doses. "This is good news for us."
Exploring Multiple Options

On Thursday, Dr Momen said the government is giving its best efforts to get vaccines connecting multiple countries - the United States, China, Canada, Russia and the UK apart from its continuous request to India to meet Bangladesh's urgent needs.

He said the discussion with China is almost at the final stage while they are expecting a positive reply from the US on the vaccine front.

While talking to reporters at State guesthouse Padma, Dr Momen said there are people who could not take the second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine due to short supply from India.

He also highlighted the ongoing discussion with Russia. "Hope, everything will be settled within a week."

Responding to a question, the Foreign Minister said they came to know unofficially that Bangladesh is not in the priority list of the USA as there is a lesser number of deaths in Bangladesh.

"I didn't like the idea. They (US) don't think it's a crisis in Bangladesh," he said, adding that it is an emergency issue for Bangladesh.

US State Department Coordinator for Global COVID Response and Health Security Gayle E. Smith has said the United States is going to be the largest sharer of vaccine jabs putting 80 million additional vaccine doses into the mix.

"I can't tell you at this point what the allocation is going to be per country. We'll have information for you later on. And as I think I mentioned, we are also, with respect to India and also India's neighbors, mounting an emergency humanitarian response given the surges that are ongoing there," she said.

In a telephonic media briefing on Wednesday, Smith referred to an announcement by US President Joe Biden earlier this week that they will be sharing 20 million vaccine doses from their own stocks in addition to the 60 million AstraZeneca doses that were announced previously by the President.

"So that means we're going to be putting 80 million additional vaccines into the mix, making us the largest sharer of vaccine doses thus far," she said.

The US official said given the surge there, India has been a major priority for the US. "We've delivered $100 million in emergency assistance; mobilised with the American private sector a pretty amazing response, again, from the American private sector and public, and we'll continue to do so."

Smith said she does not have anything to say yet on the ultimate allocations, but they will reach out and make sure that all are informed when those decisions are made.

Responding to a question on India, Dr Momen said India did never say that they will not give vaccine doses to Bangladesh but failed to deliver.

He said India was requested to provide vaccine doses to Bangladesh as a gift to meet its emergency need if India has an embargo on export.

"I should say we had a very positive discussion (with my Indian counterpart," Dr Momen said.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Dr Momen requested his Indian counterpart Dr S. Jaishankar to ensure supply of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Bangladesh as soon as possible to meet Bangladesh's needs.

Bangladesh entered into a deal with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to purchase 30 million doses of a potential vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca for Covid-19.

Bangladesh was supposed to get five million doses of vaccine per month as the SII and Bangladesh's Beximco Pharma signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for priority delivery of the vaccine doses.

Bangladesh sought at least three million doses of vaccine under the agreement to address the immediate demand in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has so far received only seven million of Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine doses produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) through its contract. Bangladesh also received 3.3 million doses of vaccine as a bilateral partnership gift.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh has sought at least two million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from Canada on an emergency basis to meet the emergency need of 1.6 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to provide second doses.

Want Vaccines for Rohingyas

Responding to a question from CNN, Dr Momen said Bangladesh has taken very strict preventive action, health care action, as a result, the fatalities and infections in the camps are relatively very low.

"In the Rrohingya camp, we've around 1.1 million of them. You see, we could not provide them with the vaccine yet," he said, adding that the government wants to get them vaccinated too.

On the situation in India, Dr Momen said they are afraid as Covid cases are increasing alarmingly in the next-door neighbour, India.

"You know that Bangladesh and India have a very good relationship -- we have tried to stop the border so that people from India don't come, but a lot of people came and many Bangladeshis went there and they're coming back," he said.

The Foreign Minister said they are afraid that there could be an increasing number of Indian variants of this Covid. "But we are taking precautions and we maintain a strong quarantine arrangement."

"We think we need to have more vaccines, that's important," he added.

Dr Momen said they have to be careful so that Covid does not spread. "Therefore, we need all protective measures."

 
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What’s that sound? Sound of momen begging? My god I can’t believe it. I thought digital middle income country 🙈🙈🙈
This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t suck off india


Why did our bdeshi leaders have to go to some shoddy Indian Middle men for vaccine and not directly to thr source and produce it themselves?
 
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What’s that sound? Sound of momen begging? My god I can’t believe it. I thought digital middle income country 🙈🙈🙈
This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t suck off india


To be honest BD did not have a choice if it wanted to source the extremely cheap and effective UK AstraZeneca vaccine. India was the only one licensed to produce it for itself and the 3rd world.

Chinese vaccines are not that good(+ very expensive) and anyway even Pakistan is getting very low shipments of Chinese vaccines and so BD may have been in a worse position with lower efficacy vaccine with lower shipments to date.

However, saying that, this turd is part of a government that could have got 4 million doses of Sputnik this month if they just accepted the standard 10 US dollar per shot offer from Russia, rather than get into the haggling game.

No sure whether the clueless Momen has any idea that the recommended two-dose interval for AstraZeneca is 12 weeks and the first dose will probably still provide high protection for many months more and so even stretching the 2nd dose beyond the 12 weeks probably won't matter too much in the end.
 
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To be honest BD did not have a choice if it wanted to source the extremely cheap and effective UK AstraZeneca vaccine. India was the only one licensed to produce it for itself and the 3rd world.

Chinese vaccines are not that good(+ very expensive) and anyway even Pakistan is getting very low shipments of Chinese vaccines and so BD may have been in a worse position with lower efficacy vaccine with lower shipments to date.

However, saying that, this turd is part of a government that could have got 4 million doses of Sputnik this month if they just accepted the standard 10 US dollar per shot offer from Russia, rather than get into the haggling game.

No sure whether the clueless Momen has any idea that the recommended two-dose interval for AstraZeneca is 12 weeks and the first dose will probably still provide high protection for many months more and so even stretching the 2nd dose beyond the 12 weeks probably won't matter too much in the end.
I would have already placed multiple orders, Pfizer just to be safe. But these incompetent tools are all talk no action
 
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Foreign minister blames ‘lousy’ health ministry mistakes for vaccine delay
bdnews24.com
Published: 21 May 2021 12:00 AM BdST Updated: 21 May 2021 12:00 AM BdST

AK Abdul Momen said the ministry sent papers back to China with signatures in the wrong places while Russia did not like “inconsistencies” in the number of doses asked for.

Bangladesh filled in and sent two of the three documents back. Parts of the one returned on Wednesday were in Chinese, while the rest is in English.

“It was fixed yesterday (Wednesday) by engaging a professor who is an expert in Chinese language. These are lousy work. We haven’t done these. We only establish the connection.

“These are done by the health ministry. They fix things like the time of delivery. It’s not our job. It's somewhat delaying (the process to bring vaccine),” Momen told reporters on Thursday.

He said Bangladesh’s Ambassador in Beijing Mahbub Uz Zaman is “frustrated” over the health ministry’s work.

“The process cannot be finalised without the documents. He will finalise it, and he is very much frustrated.”

The foreign minister reminded Health Minister Zahid Maleque and Principal Secretary Ahmad Kaikaus of the urgency to fast-track the process after the ambassador sent text messages and called Momen.

For the Russian vaccine, the health ministry mentioned a volume of the required doses, but in another document sent later, the ministry said Bangladesh would need fewer jabs, according to Momen.

“The Russians didn’t like it. We are busy with these now,” he said. Final negotiations with Russia were ongoing.

The foreign minister hopes that the issue of Chinese vaccine will be resolved by this week.

“The sales documents are not ready. They want clean documents.”

Bangladesh is buying Chinese and Russian vaccines amid a supply crunch caused by India’s ban on export to tackle its own crisis.
 
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Dr Momen said the big problem is that a large number of people in Bangladesh who took the first dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca could not take the second dose.

"Because we don't have any more. We can't give them the second dose. That's creating a lot of problems for us," said the Foreign Minister.
ভাবিয়া করিও কাজ করিয়া ভাবিওনা। I do not understand why the BD administration is infested with people lacking normal intelligence unable to do a thing meticulously.

A normal country would have inoculated only that number who can be inoculated twice with the available vaccines. But, the GoB has exhausted all the vaccines with only one shot without a guarantee of receiving more.

How funny our people are!!! Is it due to low IQ?
 
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কেন টিকা পেতে মরিয়া কেন? যান ভাতার ভারতের হোল ধোন চেটে দেন, টিকা দিয়ে দেবে। দালালি এখনো করেই যাচ্ছেন নির্লজ্জের মত।

( why so desperate? Go and lick the co.ck and ball of paramour India, they will give vaccine. This guy is still doing sycophancyshamelessly)

Responding to a question on India, Dr Momen said India did never say that they will not give vaccine doses to Bangladesh but failed to deliver.
 
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Looks like covid also killed india-bangla bhai bhai
Bangladesh has a policy of "anybody who does us favours is bhai-bhai". Has its upsides and downsides.
ভাবিয়া করিও কাজ করিয়া ভাবিওনা। I do not understand why the BD administration is infested with people lacking normal intelligence unable to do a thing meticulously.

A normal country would have inoculated only that number who can be inoculated twice with the available vaccines. But, the GoB has exhausted all the vaccines with only one shot without a guarantee of receiving more.

How funny our people are!!! Is it due to low IQ?
If you walk into a BD govt office, you would realise how incompetent our officials are. They can't even type up their own reports, print them out or even make their own coffee.

They rely on poorly educated staffers to prepare critical contractual documents for them to sign. Often they are too lazy to even stamp them themselves.

The errors that Momen listed do not surprise me one bit.
 
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I would have already placed multiple orders, Pfizer just to be safe. But these incompetent tools are all talk no action


Pfizer would not work for 3 reasons:


1. BD does not have the -78C cold-storage infrastructure outside Dhaka and maybe Chittagong at best for this vaccine.

2. Each dose is 30 US dollars each and so billions of US dollars would be needed to vaccinate the most vulnerable 20-25% with 2 shots.

3. Supplies are extremely limited outside the big buyers of the US and Europe who have hoarded that vaccine mostly.
 
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