Covid-19 vaccines being embezzled in the black market

It appears that the peddling of Covid-19 vaccines on the black market—something we have feared to be an inevitability since February—is finally underway. According to a report published recently in The Daily Star, police arrested a 37-year-old man in the capital's Dakkhinkhan last Wednesday for selling Moderna vaccines at Sheba Clinic in the Chalabon area. This is in contradiction to the government's order of allowing all eligible vaccine recipients to only get jabs from designated government facilities, free of cost. The arrestee was supposedly employed as a volunteer at an Uttarkhan vaccination centre during the special vaccination drive earlier this month. He had been inoculating people for Tk 500 a dose.

We agree with experts such as Be-Nazir Ahmed from the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups (NITAG), who told this newspaper that mechanisms of the vaccine drive need to be examined and loopholes in the entire vaccine supply chain system need to be identified. Otherwise, this could be only the beginning of more and more vaccines being administered out of the government's line of sight.

There have also been incidents of influential people, such as Rajshahi City Corporation mayor and four of his family members, getting the jabs at home, apparently unaware that this was not allowed. The mayor claims that the inoculations had taken place "about three months ago", though how that could excuse the incident is beyond our understanding. Even more bizarre is the fact of a Cumilla City Corporation councillor administering shots to over 100 people herselfin her office on August 12.

While these irregularities regarding the country's vaccination drive are underway, so is the usual blame game that different arms of the government play against each other during such mishaps. The deputy commissioner of Uttara division police told our reporters that the Dhaka North City Corporation has been requested to check for missing Covid-19 vaccine ampules and for details on the aforementioned vaccine peddler. But while the DNCC mayor said the police would have the city corporation's "full assistance", he also said "they would not investigate the matter themselves." Health officials from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), on the other hand, fully blame the centres operated under the city corporations during the special vaccination drive for all the recent anomalies and irregularities. "Whatever" the case may be, we would urge concerned authorities and the government to prioritise the free and safe vaccination of citizens above all else. We understand the need to inoculate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. However, we believe the quality of service while administering Covid-19 vaccine shots cannot be compromised in a bid to reach a certain goal number of people vaccinated.