Week-long booster dose inoculation starts in June

As part of the government's initiative to advance its Covid-19 booster dose vaccination drive, the government has planned a week-long vaccination campaign in June intending to expedite inoculation with booster doses.

"A booster dose campaign will start next month but no date has been fixed yet. Booster doses will be given to 2-3 crore people. So far, 98% of the targeted population have received two doses," said Professor Meerjady Sabrina Flora, chair of the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan for Covid-19 Vaccines in Bangladesh.

She added that many people did not take the booster dose even after receiving the SMS as they were fasting. Some people are also less interested in taking booster doses as Covid cases have dropped recently and no death has been recorded in the last 20 consecutive days. The positivity rate at present is also below 1%.

"For the last two days, we have discussed with field-level officers the challenges involved in the booster dose enhancement campaign. This time, the campaign will be week-long instead of day-long so that people can come at their convenience," she added.

DGHS data shows that 1.31 crore people have taken the booster dose. Some 12.85 crore people have received the first dose while 11.66 crore received the second dose. At present, 50,000 people are vaccinated daily on average.

Infographic: TBS

Dr M Mushtuq Husain, adviser of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), told The Business Standard that Covid infection has been low in Bangladesh for more than three months. However, there is risk of another outbreak within three to six months of the lower infection rate and as such, infections may increase in June.

Thus, those who have not been vaccinated should be vaccinated and eligible people have to be given a booster dose, he added.

26 Covid cases were reported in 24hrs

The country reported 26 Covid  cases in the last 24 hours till 8am Tuesday and the positivity rate was 0.54% after testing 7,490 samples across the country.

So far, 29,127 people have died and 19,52,855 tested positive for the virus since the outbreak hit the country in 2020. 

Bangladesh reported its first Covid case on 8 March 2020 and the first death on 18 March of the same year.