Bangladesh’s Beximco Pharmaceuticals will buy up to three million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from Serum Institute of India at about $8 each for sale on the private market, Beximco’s chief operating officer told Reuters news agency.
The COO, Rabbur Reza, said that was about twice the price of around $4 that Beximco had agreed for separate supplies of five million doses a month, over the first half of the year, for the Bangladeshi government’s subsidised mass-vaccination programme.
Serum Institute will begin deliveries of the shot later this month, both those for state and private use, Reza told Reuters news on Tuesday. The vaccine is administered in two separate doses per patient, typically with weeks between them.
The delivery of the shots to India’s eastern neighbour, the world’s eighth-most populous country with more than 160 million people, comes as India tries to meet global demand for vaccines and bolster its reputation as a pharmaceutical powerhouse.