Bangladesh signs MoU with Serum Institute of India (SII) for COVID-19 Vaccine.

The Government of Bangladesh have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Serum Institute of India on November 5, 2020. The MoU has been signed for the priority delivery of 3 crore COVID-19 vaccine called COVISHIELD doses to Bangladesh.  The COVISHIELD Vaccines has been developed by AstraZeneca and University of Oxford.  As per the MoU, initially 1.5 crore people will be vaccinated and each person would be given two doses.

Vaccines in India

In India, three COVID-19 vaccines are currently undergoing the trial. The three vaccines are- Russian Vaccine called Sputnik V, Oxford University Vaccine called COVISHIED and the COVAXIN that has been developed by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Bharat Biotech.

COVAX Facility

India has been made a part of the COVAX Facility by the Global Alliance for Vaccines (GAVI). This facility is aimed at making the COVID-19 vaccines to all the countries. The primary objective of the facility is to avoid the vaccine nationalism.

COVID-19 Vaccines Distribution

The distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine will be based on or influenced by three factors like convenience, confidence and complacency. Convenience means the physical availability or proximity of the vaccine to all the nations. Recently, a study was conducted by Lancet. The study stated that wealthy nations have already secured more than 2 billion doses by the advance purchase agreements. This might lead to scarcity of vaccine in the developing countries like India. The COVAX facility seeks to avoid this.

How the vaccines would be stored?

The Government of India has planned to store COVID-19 vaccine using the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN). The GoI will use the real time tracking using eVIN.  It is an indigenously developed system that digitises the vaccines stocks and monitors the temperature of the cold chain.