Reza Mahmud :
The government has made a plan to inoculate at least one crore people every month to achieve herd immunity for preventing the Covid-19 transmission.
But public health experts and officials said that the facilities are inadequate to support the plan.
DGHS sources said that there are about 7500 vaccination centers across the country.
The centres are able to vaccinate highest 75,00,000 per month.
“Very few centers are able to administer 200 vaccines daily. Most of the centres are inoculating 50 to 100 jabs in a day,” said an official of the DGHS preferring anonymity.
He said, the authorities inoculate about 2,50,000 jabs highest in a day.
Officials from the DGHS said the centres have not adequate manpower to inoculate vaccines to more people.
“There are acute manpower shortages in the vaccination centers. Trained nurses are inadequate to deploy in those sites,” said the official.
Public health experts asked the government to vaccinate at least 70 to 80pc of the population to achieve herd immunity. When contacted, Public Health Expert Dr. Lenin Chowdhury told The New Nation,”Without gaining herd immunity it is very difficult to save the people from the pandemic.”
Dr. Lenin Chowdhury said, the government should prepare a plan for mass vaccination to protect the people from the deadly disease.
When contacted, Professor Dr. M. Muzaherul Huq, former Advisor of the World Health Organisation told The New Nation, “At least 12.50 crore of people have to be vaccinated for gaining herd immunity.”
He said, the government should collect number of vaccines from different countries and organisations as per the plan of herd immunity.
When contacted, Dr. Robed Amin, Spokesperson of DGHS told The New Nation on Sunday, “Without vaccination of 70 to 80 per cent of the population, it is not possible to gain herd immunity.”
He said the government is trying to vaccinate highest number of people within short time.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said the government will implement its plan to vaccinate one crore people each month with the help of the 210 million vaccines that are expected to arrive from different countries and organisations soon.
The minister revealed the plan while talking to journalists after visiting a field hospital at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) on Sunday.
“The number of Covid-19 cases has increased by five to six times more after Eid travel,” the minister said.
The minister said the BSMMU field hospital opened for treating Covid-19 patients with 1,000 beds, including 200 ICU and HDU beds, is set to start operations from Saturday.
