Russian Direct Investment Fund on Wednesday expressed desire to sell COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V, developed in Russia, to Bangladesh in November along with other countries, national health advisory committee chairman Md Shahidullah said.
Following an online meeting between Russian delegations and the health ministry, Shahidullah told New Age that Russian Direct Investment Fund deputy vice-president Alexander Dzhabarov offered to sell the vaccine in Bangladesh as the country was expecting global marketing of the vaccine in November.
Dzhabarov told the meeting that Sputnik V was already in clinical trial in six countries and 40,000 people in Russia had already been vaccinated, Shahidullah said.
‘We proposed a trail of the vaccine in Bangladesh before its marketing and they said that they would consider the proposal and expressed desire to continue communication,’ Shahidullah said.
The Bangladesh delegation was led by the health minister Zahid Maleque.
The health ministry officials who attended the meeting claimed that the ministry also offered manufacturing of the vaccine in Bangladesh by local pharmaceuticals and the proposal would also be considered by Russia.
Earlier in this month health minister Zahid Maleaque had requested Russia to get the vaccine, the officials said.
The Russian embassy’s minister-counsellor Sergei A Popov meeting the health secretary M Abdul Mannan past week offered to provide assistance in clinical trial of the Russian vaccine in Dhaka and its local manufacturing, they added.
The last stage trial of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Limited is expected to begin late this month at seven hospitals in Bangladesh under the supervision of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, officials said.
The ministry is also negotiating with India for trials of two COVID-19 vaccines, to be manufactured by two Indian firms, at hospitals in Bangladesh, they said.