Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has decided to buy corona vaccines immediately after it arrives in the country, instead of waiting for it to reach through government channels, said board officials on Thursday (January 14).
The Bangladesh government will be procuring the Covishield vaccines from local pharmaceutical supplier Beximco, which will be importing them from the Serum Institute of India (SII). It is expected to arrive in the country at the end of January. According to the government’s plan, sports federations and organizations are expected to receive the vaccines for their respective national-level athletes free of cost from the second or the third month after the arrival of Covishield.
However, BCB is not willing to wait that long considering they have got a jam-packed international calendar. The board has instead decided to source the vaccine from the pharma company whose managing director, incidentally, is also BCB chief Nazmul Hasan.
“We have decided that whenever the vaccines are sold privately in the country we will buy it without any delay,” said BCB chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury. The board’s decision stems from the fact that they need to vaccinate a large portion of people engaged with the game apart from just the national cricketers, who were expected to receive the vaccine at free of cost from the government.
“National cricketers are in the government priority list but apart from them there are others involved in running the game and they are not expected to get from the government. So, we’ve decided to buy it,” Chowdhury added.
Cricbuzz understands that apart from the national cricketers BCB is planning to buy the vaccines for groundsmen, match referees, scorers, umpires, and coaches along with other board officials required to run the show. The vaccines will also be procured for first-class cricketers, women’s teams and players who are a part of the Dhaka Premier League so that the domestic season can resume and run smoothly.
DPL, which is considered to be the major source of income for large part of the cricket community, was postponed after the first round following the outbreak of the Coronavirus in March last year.
