Urgent vaccine supplies sought for Bangladesh

Dhaka: Urgent actions were required to increase Covid-19 vaccine supplies for Bangladesh as hospitals have reached their capacity and oxygen supplies were running short due to an ongoing rapid Covid-19 resurgence, a global humanitarian organisation said on Tuesday.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the deadly Delta variant was spreading fast in urban and rural areas across Bangladesh, exhausting the entire health sector beyond its limits, reports Xinhua news agency.

It said hospitals in areas of Bangladesh bordering India were experiencing a sharp rise in infections and deaths.

In the capital Dhaka, around 78 per cent of infections had been identified as caused by the Delta strain, the government said.

Around 3 per cent of the Bangladesh population has been fully vaccinated against the virus compared with half the population of countries such as the UK and the US, according to Oxford University's Our World in Data, it said.

Feroz Salah Uddin, secretary general of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, said the recent spike resurgence was deeply alarming and it was being fuelled by the more infectious and deadly Delta strain, with hundreds of people dying a week.

"Bangladesh Red Crescent has ramped up ambulance services and efforts to help reduce death and suffering due to this dangerous virus. Our volunteers are working alongside health authorities to accelerate vaccinations, but a crippling shortage in supply is hurting progress," he said.

He said Bangladesh Red Crescent teams were helping people with free ambulance services 24 hours a day, in 10 high-risk districts and providing oxygen cylinders across the country.

Sanjeev Kafely, head of IFRC Bangladesh Delegation, said it was critical that richer countries shared more vaccines with Bangladesh in the coming days and weeks.

"Covid-19 is having devastating impacts on millions of people in Bangladesh, with many losing their incomes and livelihoods," said Kafely,

"Mass vaccination is the key to ending the spiralling deaths, infections and hardships caused by this virus in Bangladesh and everywhere around the world."

Bangladesh has so far reported 954,881 Covid-19 cases and 15,229 deaths.