UNB :
Bangladesh’s health workers are gearing up to start administering the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in capital Dhaka today as the Covid-19 situation keeps worsening in the country.
Prof Shamsul Haque, Line Director of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and a member of the Vaccine Distribution Committee, disclosed it in a health briefing on Sunday.
“We’ve already received 100,620 doses of vaccine from COVAX facility. We’ve preserved it. Necessary guidelines and training have been given. Hope, we’ll start the inoculation with it on Monday,” he said.
The vaccine will be administered first at three hospitals in Dhaka-Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Sheikh Russel Gastro-liver Institute and Kurmitola General Hospital.
Those who got registered earlier for vaccination will get priority, Prof Haque added. In each of these centres, 120 people will be vaccinated every day from 9 am to 3 pm.
People getting vaccinated in the first run of Pfizer vaccine will be monitored for 7-10 days before the regular vaccination programme with Pfizer is launched, said Dr. Shamsul Haque.
He also said that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine shots will arrive soon and those who could not get the second dose will get priority. On May 27, the government approved the emergency use of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in the country.
Bangladesh on Saturday started administering Sinopharm vaccine doses across the country.
The vaccination started in the capital and elsewhere in the country with 11 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine gifted by China, said the DGHS.
The vaccine doses are given at four hospitals in Dhaka district — Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital, Sir Salimullah Medical College and Hospital, and Mughda Medical College and Hospital.
Health workers and police personnel, students of government and private medical and dental colleges, students of government institutes of nursing and midwifery, residents of dormitories of public universities, officers and employees working in important national projects, expatriate workers, cleaners, those who are engaged in burial and those who were excluded from vaccination earlier and citizens of other countries who are working here will be vaccinated on a priority basis.
