STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain yesterday said the government is procuring vaccines on a large scale to strengthen the country’s immunisation programme.

He made the comment while receiving 1.5 million doses of measles-rubella (MR) vaccine and 0.9 million doses of tetanus and diphtheria (TD) vaccine, supplied through Unicef, at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.

The vaccines arrived on a regular Qatar Airways flight, said a health ministry press release.

Briefing journalists there, the minister said although the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) had been affected by certain decisions of the previous government, the current administration was giving it the highest priority.

He also said the decision to procure vaccines through open tender had been cancelled, and instead the government opted for direct procurement through Unicef, which is being implemented swiftly.

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