Bangladesh seeks to produce Astra-Zeneca vaccines locally

Zahid Maleques, the health minister of Bangladesh, speaking to the Daily Star, said, “We have sent a letter to AstraZeneca 10 days ago, requesting them to provide us their technology so that we can produce the vaccine locally and we have that capacity.”

However, the government is yet to receive a reply from the company.

Maleque also informed that government officials had visited the plants of some of the pharmaceutical firms in the country, and found them capable of producing the vaccine locally.

The main advantage of the AstraZeneca vaccine is that it can be restored at a relatively high temperature in comparison to other vaccines like BioNtech-Pfizer and Moderna.

Experts in the field hailed the government initiative and said it would greatly help the vaccination drive in the country if the company accepts the government request.

“What we need is the transfer of appropriate technology as most of the vaccines developed against Covid-19 have applied relatively newer techniques,” Md Sayedur Rahman, chairman of the pharmacology department at BSMMU, was quoted as saying by the Daily Star.

However, some experts also said the country’s drug authority, the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), needs to upgrade its labs to match the global standards.