Noman Mosharef :
The nationwide Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which was stalled due to a suspension of supply back in April, is set to resume on Saturday. The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) is going to start it with Chinese government gifts Sinopharm vaccine.
However, DGHS has classified that 10 categories will get this vaccine while six category of people are being excluded from the inoculations programme.
DGHS source said, four medical colleges Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, Sir Salimullah Medical College and Mitford Hospital, Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital and Mugda Medical College and Hospital will administer Sinopharm jabs in the capital. And in the district level the vaccine centres will inoculates the vaccine,
Those who will get vaccine are preferred government health workers and police personnel who have not been vaccinated before, students of government and private medical and dental colleges, students of government nursing and midwifery, government mats and government IHT, public university residential students, officials and employees involved in BIDA and other nationally important developmental projects (Padma Bridge Project, Matarbari Power Project, Metrorail Project, Express Highway Project, Rooppur Power Project, Rampal Power Station), cleaners of Dhaka North and South City Corporation area, Ward /
municipality workers engaged in the funeral of Covid-19 bodies across the country and Chinese nationals living in Bangladesh will get this Sinopharm vaccine.
Moreover, if the first dose of vaccine is received from another country and comes to Bangladesh, this vaccine cannot be given as the second dose.
Those who will not get Sinopharm vaccine are under 18 years of age, he/she will not be able to take the vaccine if he has a fever or is ill at the time of taking the vaccine, has a previous history of vaccine allergies, and has severe side effects after the first dose. Uncontrolled long-term diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, asthma, kidney disease, people undergoing dialysis, cancer and people with low immunity should be vaccinated according to the advice of a registered physician.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to administer the Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine to the expatriates of the country.
The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) issued a letter on Thursday to include the expatriates in the vaccine priority list in this connection, Assistant Personal Secretary (APS) to the Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Md Rasheduzzaman confirmed.
According to the Health Ministry, all expatriates, who have a Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) smart card or registered for one, will receive the vaccine on priority basis.
The nationwide Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which was stalled due to a suspension of supply in April, is set to resume on Saturday.
The Sinopharm vaccine will be administered at every Covid vaccination centre in the country.
The decision to include expatriates to the vaccine priority list came following a meeting between Health Minister Zahid Maleque and Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad on Wednesday.
Bangladesh started its nationwide Covid-19 vaccination program on February 7 by administering Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
The country has so far received seven million Covishield doses as per contract. Besides, India gave Bangladesh 3.3 million vaccines as a gift.
However, on April 25, the government suspended administering the first doses with Covishield, just a day after India said that no more vaccine doses would be shipped to Bangladesh anytime soon as the Covid-19 situation worsened there.
As SII has been unable to provide the number of doses they promised, many people are waiting for second jabs after receiving their first.
Bangladesh till now received 1.1 million Sinopharm vaccines as a gift from the Chinese government.
The health authorities administered the Sinopharm vaccine to 500 medical college students on May 25 while Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) administered the vaccine to over 450 Chinese citizens as well.
On May 31, the country also received about 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine under the Covax facility run by the World Health Organization and Gavi, the vaccine alliance.
