<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000;">Bangladesh has approached several countries to procure COVID-19 vaccine for the country. Addressing media in Dhaka on Thursday, Foreign Minister Dr. A K Abdul Momen said that Bangladesh is making efforts to get vaccines from the US, China, Canada, Russia and UK apart from its request to India to meet Bangladesh's urgent need for the vaccine. <br />''<br />''Speaking about the countries with whom Bangladesh is in discussion for the vaccine, Foreign Minister Dr. Momen said the discussion with China was in final stages while discussion with Russia is ongoing. <br />''<br />''The COVID-19 mass vaccination programme in Bangladesh started on 7th February with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII). The SII has supplied 7 million doses under its commercial agreement for 30 million doses. Apart from this, India also provided about 3.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine as a gift to Bangladesh. However, the supply from SII was interrupted due to the sudden rise in COVID-19 cases in India and consequent surge in domestic demand. <br />''<br />''Bangladesh has vaccinated over 58 lakh people with the first dose while over 39 lakh people have received the second dose.<br />''Meanwhile, the country reported 36 deaths and 1457 fresh Coronavirus cases on Thursday. The death toll in Bangladesh has gone up to 12,284. The total number of infections since March last year is 7.85 lakh but the number of active cases in the country is only about 45,400. The sample positivity rate in Bangladesh was recorded at 7.50 per cent on Thursday.</span><br />