Bangladesh

Beximco to start production of Covid-19 vaccine this year Beximco Vaccine
Collected Beximco MD Nazmul Hasan Papon

Beximco to start production of Covid-19 vaccine this year

Bangladesh Live News | @banglalivenews | 24 Apr 2021, 08:38 pm

Dhaka, April 24: Beximco Pharmaceuticals Limited, the country's leading pharmaceutical company, is going to produce vaccines this year to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus in the country.

Nazmul Hasan Papon, managing director (MD) of the company, told reporters after receiving the second dose of vaccine at Kurmitola General Hospital in the capital on Saturday (April 24).

"Initially, our plan was to help the government with vaccinations. But now with vaccinations, there is no other way but to vaccinate ourselves," he said.

Nazmul Hasan Papon said, "Why aren't those who have the ability to produce vaccines building it? Why aren't they coming forward? But one thing we can say is that Beximco may go into vaccine production this year. But it has not been decided yet."

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said that the Russian formula vaccine would be made in Bangladesh. How do you see this? "There are now four approved vaccines in the world. Pfizer, Mordana, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson," Papon said.

"Without these, there is no benefit in producing Russian vaccines before approval. What do you mean, we will produce vaccines in our country that have not yet been approved?"

"Russia's vaccine must be approved by the World Health Organization or the European Union. If none of them are approved, why should I make it? The government will not approve it. So I mean, if it is approved at any cost, then we can make it."

"There will be no vaccine crisis in the next two months, a lot of vaccines will come. After two months we will have many more options. The vaccine crisis will last until June. There will be no more crises after that," Papon said.

"Even though we have an agreement with Serum Institute for 30 million dose vaccines, we have paid for 15 million dose of vaccines. These vaccines were supposed to be given by May, but we have received only 7 million. Let them give us the rest of the vaccine, then maybe we won't look at them."