Bangladesh will never accept any vaccine that the World Health Organization (WHO) does not recognize for the pandemic COVID-19 (Coronavirus) while the government has allocated Taka 600 crore in this regard, reports BSS.

“The whole world seems to be on the race for the vaccine . . . Since the very beginning, Bangladesh has been maintaining contact with all concerned working with it,” Cabinet Secretary Khandaker Anwarul Islam told a press briefing after the regular weekly cabinet meeting at the Bangladesh Secretariat.

Held at the cabinet conference room, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina joined the virtual meeting as the chair from her official residence Ganabhaban while her cabinet colleagues and secretaries got connected from the Bangladesh Secretariat through a videoconferencing.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, he said, during the Global Vaccine Summit on June last of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) in London on the virtual platform, called for declaring Bangladesh as a country eligible for vaccines that has cordially accepted by them.

The cabinet secretary categorically said the government has earmarked a budget of Taka 600 crore for the purchase of vaccines and if foreign currency is not available for any reason, overall arrangements will be made from the budget.

Some have complained that the government has squandered the opportunity of getting the vaccine free of cost, he quoted the cabinet meeting discussion, as saying that there is no possibility of getting free vaccine.

“But the cabinet hoped that Bangladesh will get the COVID-19 vaccine on priority basis,” he added.