Health ministry’s vaccination expenses cut in half

The finance ministry has cut down Tk853.7 crore from the health ministry’s Tk1,589.45 crore proposal to procure Covishield vaccines for Bangladesh.

These deductions come in the form of expenses including, travel, training and survey costs, health security expenses, and publicity and advertisement costs, an official of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare told Business Insider on Wednesday.

"It may not be proper to run the Covid-19 vaccination program in the country without training, survey and advertisement," the official opined.

The health ministry is unlikely to run a vaccination programme against possible coronavirus infections without surveying specific areas for selecting the most vulnerable people, added the official who preferred to remain anonymous.

Asked about reduction in funds, Finance Division officials said the government is now spending huge amounts of money to prevent Covid-19 infections. But they want proper use of funds in running the vaccination programme.

As a result, some of the expenses related to the vaccination programme have been dropped from the health ministry’s proposal.

The proposal to procure 30 million doses of vaccines was approved on the second week of November.

According to the proposal, the total cost of 30 million doses of this coronavirus vaccine would amount to Tk1,589.45 crore for Bangladesh. But on November 10, the Finance Division only allocated Tk735 crore (around $87 million) to purchase the vaccine.

Health ministry sources said Bangladesh is lagging behind in purchasing, transporting, marketing, storing, and applying vaccines for the deadly coronavirus. Meanwhile, the rest of the world — even neighbouring India — has almost completed all preparations.

On the contrary, Bangladesh has not even started the process of recruiting volunteers for this important work yet, sources claimed.

Though the training plan for the health workers has been fixed, training has not begun yet.

Furthermore, auto disable (AD) syringes have yet to be purchased for the Covid-19 vaccination programme.

The work of collecting safety boxes and cold chain equipment for transporting vaccines is also moving at a snail’s pace. It has not yet been decided where the vaccine will be stored after it arrives in the country.

A top source of the health ministry said that the coronavirus vaccination programme will be conducted under the expanded immunisation program (EPI) of the Health Services Division.

Those involved in EPI activities in districts and upazilas have been asked to be ready, but no details were given on how they would conduct the event or what kind of preparations would be required, according to the source.