UK donates over 4 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to Bangladesh

The UK donated over 4 million doses of the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, made by Oxford Bio-medica in Oxford and packaged in Wrexham, North Wales, to Bangladesh through the COVAX vaccine sharing mechanism.

Bangladesh’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and the country’s economic recovery, will be reinforced by this donation from the UK.The vaccine consignment arrived in Bangladesh on 13 December. While welcoming the donation, the British High Commissioner HE Robert Chatterton Dickson said:

We welcome the arrival of over 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the UK to Bangladesh. Like the rest of the world the UK and Bangladesh have experienced difficult times because of the pandemic. And we are both in it together in building back better, safer, greener.

This vaccine donation by the UK is a powerful demonstration of Brit Bangla Bondhon between two countries. The UK will do everything we can to support Bangladesh to save lives and defeat the pandemic.

On the afternoon of 15 December, Mr. Zahid Maleque, MP, Honourable Minister, Bangladesh Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, received the donations officially in an event held at the Bangladesh government’s guest house Padma. Japanese Ambassador to Bangladesh HE Ito Naoki, UNICEF Representative to Bangladesh, Mr. Sheldon Yett, and senior officials from the government of Bangladesh were present at the event.

At the G7 this year, the UK committed to donate 100 million doses by June 2022. 80% of those UK doses will be distributed through the COVAX facility.

The UK has been at the forefront of the global response to COVID-19, including through investing £90 million to support the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Over half a billion doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have been delivered at a non-profit price globally, with two-thirds going to lower and middle-income countries.

The UK also kick-started efforts to establish COVAX in 2020, providing a total of £548 million to fund vaccines for lower income countries. The scheme has delivered more than 152 million vaccine doses to over 137 countries and territories, including in 83 lower-middle income countries. 65% of the initial vaccine doses have been Oxford-AstraZeneca. COVAX aims to deliver 1.8 billion vaccines to lower-income countries around the world by early 2022.

• the UK provided £90 million to support the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine: £25m on the initial research & development, and £65m to scale up manufacturing

• the UK made it clear as part of that funding that the vaccine should be affordable around the world and consequently AstraZeneca agreed to distribute it at a non-profit price during the pandemic

• the cost of this donation has been funded through UK Overseas Development Assistance and will come over and above the ODA spending target of 0.5% of GNI if needed

• the UK has been supporting the Bangladesh Ministry of Health to develop a well-coordinated national response plan to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, resourced by development partners and the Government of Bangladesh

• overall almost £24 million of UK funding was re-prioritised from health and humanitarian programmes to support the COVID-19 response