Govt seeks AIIB support for Covid vaccine

FHM HUMAYAN KABIR | Published: November 07, 2020 23:26:01

Bangladesh has recently sought financial support from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for procuring coronavirus vaccine soon after it is developed, officials said on Saturday.
The government has estimated as much as US$1.5 billion funds will be required for purchasing the COVID-19 vaccine to immunise nearly 170 million population.
Meanwhile, the government has already approached World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan asking for US$1.50 billion funds for the purpose.
"We sent a request letter to the AIIB a few days back for getting some financial support needed to import the possible vaccine," said an Economic Relations Division (ERD) official.
Although the Beijing-based lender has yet to announce any funds for the vaccine support to its member countries, it has assured Bangladesh of helping if a decision is made in future, he added.
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) in collaboration with the health ministry has recently estimated that Bangladesh would require $1.0 to $1.5 billion funds for vaccinating the entire population at free of cost, they said.
It asked the ERD to look for the funds from multilateral and bilateral development partners.
Another ERD official said they has recently requested the World Bank, the ADB and Japan for providing US$500 million each to bankroll the vaccination programme.
Bangladesh has decided to immunise its frontliners, including doctors, medical staffers, old-aged people and other professionals directly involved with fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the second phase, it would vaccinate the rest of the population at free of charges.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its "Fair allocation mechanism for COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX facility" proposal said that 20 per cent priority group of total population will get vaccine in the first phase.
Among the priority groups, the health staffers and other frontline workers, population beyond 65 years of age, people with co-morbidity are on the list of first priority in 20 per cent of the vaccination trajectory.
Then the remaining 80 per cent of the total population would get the vaccine at free of cost in the second round.
The ERD official said since the WB has already announced a $12 billion funds for facilitating vaccine procurement and immunisation programme for its member states, Bangladesh expects to get a handsome amount of financial support from the global lender.
According to different initiatives across the globe, it was assuming that there was a possibility of developing COVID vaccine later this year or early next year in the world.
Many countries and companies, including the USA, the UK, China, Germany, India, Russia and Bangladesh, are working on developing the vaccine against the COVID-19. Some of them have already started trial on human bodies.
A ministry of health and family welfare official said the government is considering vaccination to all of its nationals for free.
The health ministry official said it would require the allocation of the $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion funds in the current and next fiscal years.
The Bangladesh government has already contacted India and China for getting the vaccine upon their developments.
The price of per unit vaccine has yet to be fixed as those are not developed by any companies in the world yet.
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