People above 40 years will be eligible to take Covid booster shots as the government has lowered the minimum age limit for it, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Sunday.

“We’ve nine crores of Covid vaccine doses in hand. The government has lowered the age limit for receiving Covid booster shots to 40 from 50. Some people have taken booster shots. So, the government has decided to lower the age limit to 40,” he said.

The minister came up with the information at a press briefing at Mohakhali BCPS Auditorium in the morning over the overall Covid situation in Bangladesh.

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“We’ll bring all those above 12 under the vaccination programme. Earlier, we provided vaccines to school and college students but now all above 12, including the madrasah students, will be brought under the vaccination programme,” he said.

Replying to a question about the vaccination process, the Health Minister said, “Those above 12 can get the vaccine when they’ll go to the vaccine centres. We won’t let anyone go unvaccinated.”

Answering a question about vaccinating children above five years, the minister said, “We’ve had discussions with the World Health Organisation over the issue and they said they’ll let us know.”

The government has taken a decision to give Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the floating population including day labourers  as one dose of the vaccine can prevent Covid-19, he said.

“We have got some Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses from the US under COVAX facility and the vaccination will start soon,” he added.

On January 20, some 3.36 lakh doses of J & J vaccine arrived in the country.

On December 28 last year, Bangladesh officially began administering booster doses of a Covid-19 vaccine but "on a limited scale".

Initially, citizens, aged above 60, received the booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

On January 12, the Directorate General of Health Services’ (DGHS) instructed to administer Moderna vaccine instead of the Phfizer jabs as the third or booster dose at all vaccine centres across the country.

On January 17, the government lowered the age limit for receiving the Covid booster dose up to 50.

Covid situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh reported 21 more Covid-linked deaths with 10,378 fresh cases in 24 hours till Saturday morning.

The daily positivity rate dropped to 31.10 per cent from highest-ever 33.37 per cent recorded on Friday after testing 33,373 samples during the period, according to the DGHS.

The country logged its earlier highest daily positivity rate at 32.55% on July 24 last year reporting 6,780 cases and 195 deaths.

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On Friday, Bangladesh reported 20 Covid-linked deaths with 15,440 fresh cases.

The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 28,329 while the caseload mounted to 1,731,149.

Meanwhile, the mortality rate further declined to 1.60 per cent.

However, the recovery rate also declined to 88.18 per cent with the recovery of 1,109 more patients during the 24-hour period.