Encouraging people to take vaccines biggest challenge now

One year into the government's Covid-19 vaccination drive, more than 20% of the targeted 12 crore people are yet to be jabbed and encouraging people to take the vaccines is now the biggest challenge for the authorities.

To overcome this, the government has already started to vaccinate people without the need for registration and plans to open evening vaccine centres.

"There are a number of clusters including some 30-40 lakh students of the Qawmi madrasas, day labourers and floating communities, who are still outside the vaccination reach. We are now trying to vaccinate them all," Professor Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora told The Business Standard.

Dr Flora, who is the chair of the Covid-19 Vaccine Management Taskforce Committee of the Directorate General of the Health Services (DGHS), also said they are planning to open evening vaccination centres.

"We still need to complete preparations, including security arrangements for evening inoculation centres, before it can be finalised," she said, adding that the madrasa students and floating community are being vaccinated through special campaigns.

"Vaccination is a lot easier now. People can now take their jabs without registration," said Dr Flora.

On Monday Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that the government is struggling to find people for vaccination.

"We have 10 crore jabs in hand, which means we have more than enough to inoculate everyone," the minister said and urged people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

He hoped that the target number would be vaccinated by the end of this year.

The minister also revealed that so far over Tk20,000 crore has been spent in the government's vaccination drive.

Country received 27.67 crore shots so far

From gifts and purchases, Bangladesh has so far brought in a total of 27.67 crore vaccine shots. A total of 9.93 crore people have received their first doses while 6.51 crore received both their doses. The number of booster dose takers stands at 20 lakh, with 10 crore jabs in stock.

Currently, Bangladesh is using Pfizer jabs for inoculating children, Moderna and AstraZeneca shots for the booster doses and Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines as first doses. The shelf lives for moderna, Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines are respectively six months, nine months and 18 months.

Using the vaccine within the expiry date is also a challenge for the authority.

Dr Flora said, "We often get vaccines that have 1.5-2 months before they will expire. We monitor the centres regularly and use up the vaccines nearing expiry on a priority basis."

3 districts lagging behind

Of all the districts, 46% people in Sunamganj, and 50% in Netrokona and Lakshmipur have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.  

As Sunamganj is predominantly a haor area, the rate of vaccination is comparatively low there due to communication issues, according to the district's Civil Surgeon Dr Ahmed Hussain.

Dr Hussain told The Business Standard, "As the residents of the districts are mostly expatriates and aspiring-migrants, they have taken their vaccines from Dhaka or Sylhet. As a result, although they are from our area, their data is not reflected in our inoculation data."

He further said that they have undertaken a massive programme to get everyone vaccinated by February.

"We are going door to door to find people who are yet to take their vaccine shots," he said.

While recognising the challenge that remains, Dr Flora pointed out the achievement of the government in its vaccination drive.

"Providing first jabs to 10 crore people is no less significant. We must extend our thanks to people for that," she said adding, "Thanks to the vaccination drive, the rate of hospitalisation and death were comparatively less than the rate of new cases during the current wave."

Daily Covid deaths rise to 38, highest in 5 months

Bangladesh has been witnessing a steady rise in Covid-19 deaths as 38 more died of the virus in the last 24 hours till 8am Monday.

The positivity rate was recorded at 21.07% after 44,471 samples were tested across the country during the same period.

With the latest figures, the death toll reached 28,627 and the case tally increased to 18,70,901 in the country.