Staff Reporter :
Everyone whose age is 12 and above will get Covid vaccines and all people over 40 years old will get booster shots of the jab as per the latest decision of the health authorities in Bangladesh.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Sunday announced the decision to the media.
He said, “As per the previous decision, only school children over 12 years of age were to be inoculated. But in fact every one might not be vaccinated, as many of that age group coul’nt go to school for earning livelihood,” he said.
They, however, will be able to get it by going to the vaccination center and showing their birth certificates, Zahid Maleque said.
Besides, the minister said that government has 90 million Covid-19 jabs in stock now. So, it has lowered the age limit from 50 to 40 for giving them Covid-19 booster shots. The government will not let anyone remain unvaccinated, he added.
Replying to a query regarding vaccination of children above five, the minister said that they had discussed the matter with the World Health Organization, but the world body replied that they would let it inform later.
The health minister expressed anxiety for Omicron variant spreading saying the infection rate has been twenty-fold times higher right now.
He said that he thought that the number of Covid-19 cases in the country would be much higher than reported numbers of the patients.
“The number of hospitalisations is also on the rise. The healthcare system will be overwhelmed if that trend continues,” he said.
According to the minister, claimed of a comparatively low fatality rate from Covid-19 due to the government’s inoculation campaigns.”The government has inoculated record 32.4 million vaccines this month, bringing the total to 157 million till the date,” he said.
On December 28 last year, Bangladesh started inoculating booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine with a limited scale.
A person can receive a Covid-19 booster jab six months after taking the second dose of the vaccine.
