Bangladesh to buy Indian Covid-19 vaccines after China asks to share vaccine trials’ cost: Report

Bangladesh looks up to India for the supply of its coronavirus vaccine -- Covishield -- developed by the Serum Institute of India.

This comes on the heels of China asking Bangladesh to chip in the cost of clinical trials of its Sinovac developed CoronaVac vaccine, Hindustan Times reported.

While Dhaka refused to share the cost of the trials, the Chinese firm maintained that this is the condition that every country has to abide by in order to purchase the coronavirus vaccine and Bangladesh does not make an exception.

While India has recently sent a gift of two million doses of coronavirus vaccine to Dhaka on January 21. Bangladesh further struck a deal with SII in order to purchase 30 million doses of the vaccine.

Last month in December, Prime Ministers of both the nations held a virtual summit where they agreed to cooperate with each other for the development and procurement of the vaccines. This includes Phase III testing, distribution, co-production, and delivery in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, neighboring countries, including Sri Lanka and Nepal and small countries, including Barbados, have turned to India for the vaccine supply due to apprehensions over China’s vaccine, as per media reports.