Vaccination sees sharp rise

The number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 on Tuesday sharply increased with more than one lakh inoculated on the third day of the nationwide vaccination campaign.

The Directorate General of Health Services aims to inoculate 35 lakh people in the first month of the campaign, but the number of vaccinations was still far behind the daily target of nearly 1.5 lakh.

In the past three days, 1,79,318 people received the first dose while only seven lakh people have registered so far for the jab.

According to official statistics, 1,01,082 people received the jab on Tuesday.

While talking to reporters at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital vaccination centre on the day, health secretary Abdul Mannan said that Bangladesh would obtain 1,31,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine under the COVAX programme at the end of February.

Besides, he said, the second consignment of 50 lakh doses of the same vaccine will reach the country from  the Serum Institute of India in late February.

Bangladesh will receive 12,792,000 doses of the vaccine in the first half of 2021 under the COVAX programme, undertaken by the global vaccine alliance GAVI and the World Health Organisation to ensure access for the poorer nations to COVID-19 vaccines.

The country has already secured 70 lakh doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and started the mass vaccination on Sunday.

With the scheduled new supplies in late February, vaccine doses are likely to pile up in the country while the nationwide vaccination momentum is yet to pick up, experts noted.

DGHS spokesperson Mizanur Rahman told New Age that the number of daily vaccinations is increasing as the public suspicions about the vaccine were going away.

‘We hope that the additional vaccine doses [expected by February] would not be wasted as the number of vaccine seekers is increasing,’ he said.

Experts have meanwhile observed that deficiencies in the government awareness campaign about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccination have left a vast number of people undecided about taking the vaccine.

Virologist and a former vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Nazrul Islam, has said that there are deficiencies in the awareness campaign about the vaccination while a negative campaign about vaccine side effects is going on.

‘The government has come up with few measures to counter the rumors circulated on social media platforms and in the public sphere,’ he said.

‘People have to be aware of the benefits of the vaccination,’ he emphatically said.

Bangladesh has started the vaccination drive across the country using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Each person will be given two doses of the vaccine.

The government plans to inoculate 80 per cent of the country’s population.

To raise the vaccination coverage the government has in the meantime lowered the age slab for the general vaccine seekers to 40 years from 55.

People are required to register for the vaccination through the Surokkha website www.surokkha.gov.bd.

But many laypeople are struggling to register using the online platform.

Bangladesh has so far tallied 8,229 COVID-19 deaths and 5.38 lakh cases until Tuesday. The daily test positivity rate has recently dropped to below 3 per cent.

The nationwide COVID-19 vaccination has begun 336 days after Bangladesh reported its first three COVID-19 cases on March 8, 2020.

The vaccination is being held at 1,015 hospitals across the country, including 50 in the capital.

People are vaccinated at the government health facilities in the upazila and district headquarters across the country.

The vaccination runs from 8:00am to 2:30pm every day at the immunisation centres.

A team of 204 health workers in Dhaka and 2,196 outside Dhaka are engaged in the vaccination drive.

A total of 7,344 teams of health workers and volunteers have been formed for continuous vaccination.

News Courtesy:

https://www.newagebd.net/article/129736/vaccination-sees-sharp-rise