Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh begins a nationwide coronavirus vaccination programme today (Sunday), hoping to end a pandemic that has so far killed 8,190 people in the country.
A total of 2,400 teams of health workers will serve people with vaccines in 1,005 centres across the country.
In Dhaka, 204 teams have been deployed in 50 hospitals while 2,196 more teams will work in various vaccination centres in other districts.
Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) ABM Khurshid Alam came up with the remark at a press briefing on Saturday.
Some 3,28,013 people have so far been registered for vaccines till Saturday noon. They will receive text messages about the date and centre for vaccination by tonight. If anybody misses the date, they would be able to get their doses later on any other day.
According to the DGHS, 10 vaccinationteams (eight on duty and two in reserve) will be deployed at Sadar hospitals of each district, while three teams (two on duty and one in reserve) will be deployed at other centres. Each team should be able to vaccinate 100-150 people per day.
It was initially planned for 6,725 vaccination teams to be deployed, with 619 teams in reserve. While the original deployment would have been able to vaccinate 670,000-1,000,000 people per day, the reduced number of teams should be able to inoculate about 360,000 people per day.
Over 328,000 people had completed online registration for the vaccine campaign as of 2:30pm on Saturday. Most of the people who registered were government health workers, government employees from other divisions, or health professionals from private hospitals, the DGHS DG said.
The health authorities have also decided to administer second doses of the vaccine four weeks after the first jab, instead of eight weeks.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque will inaugurate the countrywide vaccination drive by receiving vaccine shot at Sheikh Russel Gastroliver Institute & Hospital in the capital’s Mohakhali area at 10am Sunday.
Besides, Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain along with his wife will get vaccinated at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital in the capital on the same day.
On January 25, five million doses of the vaccine, invented by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), arrived in Dhaka via an Air India flight.
The vaccine doses – called AZD1222 under SII’s brand name Covishield – were stored in a warehouse of Beximco Pharma, which is the exclusive distributor of the vaccine, at Tongi in Gazipur
Five more batches – each containing five million vaccines – are scheduled to arrive in phases over five months.
On January 21, Bangladesh received 2 million doses of Covishield as a gift from the Indian government.
On November 5 last year, the Bangladesh government, SII and Beximco signed a tripartite agreement to import the vaccine developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
On January 26 this year, the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) cleared use of the first shipment of the vaccine.
Bangladesh begins a nationwide coronavirus vaccination programme today (Sunday), hoping to end a pandemic that has so far killed 8,190 people in the country.
A total of 2,400 teams of health workers will serve people with vaccines in 1,005 centres across the country.
In Dhaka, 204 teams have been deployed in 50 hospitals while 2,196 more teams will work in various vaccination centres in other districts.
Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) ABM Khurshid Alam came up with the remark at a press briefing on Saturday.
Some 3,28,013 people have so far been registered for vaccines till Saturday noon. They will receive text messages about the date and centre for vaccination by tonight. If anybody misses the date, they would be able to get their doses later on any other day.
According to the DGHS, 10 vaccinationteams (eight on duty and two in reserve) will be deployed at Sadar hospitals of each district, while three teams (two on duty and one in reserve) will be deployed at other centres. Each team should be able to vaccinate 100-150 people per day.
It was initially planned for 6,725 vaccination teams to be deployed, with 619 teams in reserve. While the original deployment would have been able to vaccinate 670,000-1,000,000 people per day, the reduced number of teams should be able to inoculate about 360,000 people per day.
Over 328,000 people had completed online registration for the vaccine campaign as of 2:30pm on Saturday. Most of the people who registered were government health workers, government employees from other divisions, or health professionals from private hospitals, the DGHS DG said.
The health authorities have also decided to administer second doses of the vaccine four weeks after the first jab, instead of eight weeks.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque will inaugurate the countrywide vaccination drive by receiving vaccine shot at Sheikh Russel Gastroliver Institute & Hospital in the capital’s Mohakhali area at 10am Sunday.
Besides, Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain along with his wife will get vaccinated at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital in the capital on the same day.
On January 25, five million doses of the vaccine, invented by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), arrived in Dhaka via an Air India flight.
The vaccine doses – called AZD1222 under SII’s brand name Covishield – were stored in a warehouse of Beximco Pharma, which is the exclusive distributor of the vaccine, at Tongi in Gazipur
Five more batches – each containing five million vaccines – are scheduled to arrive in phases over five months.
On January 21, Bangladesh received 2 million doses of Covishield as a gift from the Indian government.
On November 5 last year, the Bangladesh government, SII and Beximco signed a tripartite agreement to import the vaccine developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
On January 26 this year, the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) cleared use of the first shipment of the vaccine.
