City Desk :
Health authorities have said deficit of cooling systems outside Dhaka in vaccinating 12-17 years of children appeared as a challenge in expediting vaccination campaign for the age group while officials said efforts were underway to expand the freezing facilities, reports BSS.
Directorate general of health services (DGHS) officials said they launched the inoculation campaign for children on November 1, 2021 largely depending on Pfizer vaccines as global studies suggested jabs it was suitable and effective for that age group.
He said the country currently had enough Pfizer vaccine stocks and more Pfizer vaccines were expected to arrive very soon but unlike other jabs, Pfizer vaccines require sub-zero cooling systems.
“We are facing challenges in maintaining the temperature (for the Pfizer vaccines) in facilities outside Dhaka,” DGHS director general Professor Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam told BSS.
He, however, said parents or guardians of this age group also appeared “less motivated” in getting their children vaccinated which could hinder the campaign even after expansion of the cooling systems.
“We are closely working with educational institutions to motivate parents . . . . We hope the vaccination campaign to get pace,” Alam said.
The DGHS chief’s c comments came as several health experts and observers said the countrywide vaccination drive it could not attain the expected pace though the campaign was launched over one and half month ago.
“The number of children of the target age group is over 1 crore (10 million) and over two crore doses are required to cover them,” director general of secondary and higher secondary education Prof Dr Syed Md Golam Faruque said.
The DGHS officials said they so far administered the first COVID-19 vaccine dose to 11 lakh (1.1 million) students while over two lakh students were given second shots of the inoculation.
Faruque said most of the children of this age group were school going students for what his office kept a close monitoring on the school-based campaign but found that both the temperature issue and the guardians lack of awareness visibly slowed the drive.
DGHS’s Covid-19 vaccine management taskforce member-secretary Dr Shamsul Haque said right now the vaccination campaign for the target children was underway in 54 districts.
