Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has once again requested his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to arrange for Covid 19 vaccine after the Serum Institute of India failed to send purchased doses due to an export ban.

Momen had a telephonic conversation with Jaishankar on Tuesday and urged him to send the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca doses fast, the Bangladesh foreign ministry said in a statement.

Jaishankar said he would request Washington to send the vaccine to Bangladesh following a request in this regard from Momen, according to the ministry.

Jaishankar said the Indian government is aware of the overall situation in Bangladesh, including the vaccine crisis, according to the statement, bdnews24.com reported.

The Bangladesh government launched the mass inoculation program on Feb 7 with the AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield, manufactured by Serum.

Bangladesh has received 10.3 million doses of Covishield so far, including 3.3 million doses as gift. The first and second doses of the vaccine are spaced eight weeks apart.

But India has lately halted the export of the vaccine as it is struggling with its own inoculation drive after being hit by a devastating second wave of the infection.

Bangladesh later halted administering the first doses to save the shots for the second dosing.

Although the government has taken steps to buy vaccines from Russia and China, it needs at least 1.5 million AstraZeneca shots to complete the second dose on citizens who have received the first dose.

In this situation, Bangladesh has also asked the US and Canada for AstraZeneca shots to meet itss immediate needs.

(SAM)