BSS-36 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help Bangladesh’s vaccination programme

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help Bangladesh’s vaccination programme

NEW YORK, Sept 27, 2019 (BSS) – Bill Gates, Co-Chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has said his organisation will extend support to Bangladesh’s vaccination programme.

Bill Gates came up with the assurance when he paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Bilateral Meeting Room, Lotte New York Palace Hotel here on Thursday.

After the meeting, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen briefed reporters.

He said Bill Gates highly appreciated Bangladesh’s unprecedented successes in the health sector, particularly in vaccination programme.

The prime minister apprised him of the successful immunization programme of her government.

Sheikh Hasina also informed Bill Gates that the forcibly displaced Rohingya people who took shelter in Cox’s Bazar have been brought under the programme. “Not a single Rohingya died of any type of epidemic in Rohingya camps,” she said.

Reciprocating to her gesture, Bill Gates said they are ready to help Bangladesh in its vaccination programme.

He informed the prime minister that they have innovated a new type of vaccine which will help protect the people from various diseases like typhoid and cholera.

PM’s ICT Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Chairperson of National Advisory Committee on Autism and NDDs, Bangladesh Saima Wazed Hossain, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen, PM’s Private Investment and Industry Adviser Salman F Rahman, Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque and PMO Secretary Sajjadul Hassan were present on the occasion.

Besides, Alex V. Volkov, Chairman, ExxonMobil LNG Market Development Inc, Irina Bokova, ex-director general of UNESCO, and ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda separately called on the premier at the same hotel, Dr Momen said.

During the meeting with ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, he said, the prime minister discussed the Rohingya issue, particularly the atrocities on the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals, with Bensouda.

BSS/SH/KU/2139 HRS