“The number of people seeking vaccination is increasing gradually despite various disputes, fears and rumours centering it,” he told journalists after attending a meeting on vaccination preparation with the directors of public hospitals.

Vaccine registration is a continuous process and the registration will go on even after February 5, Alam said adding that publicity is underway at district and upazila levels where local representatives are inspiring people to get vaccinated.

Also Read: Vaccine doses to reach 64 districts by Monday: DGHS

DGHS officials and Health Minister Zahid Maleque will get vaccinated on February 7, he said.

Vaccination drive in Bangladesh

The Covid-19 vaccination drive was launched by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Kurmitola General Hospital in the capital on January 27. Some 70 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines are now available in the country.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is the safest one in the world, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said at the launching event. For getting a shot, one needs to get registered on www.surokkha.gov.bd.

Also Read: India's Serum Institute to launch another Covid vaccine by June

For now, the vaccination programme will be limited to five centres in the capital and the nationwide inoculation will start in early February.

Covid-19 situation in Bangladesh

Thirteen more people died of Covid-19 and 438 others got infected by the deadly virus in Bangladesh in the last 24 hours till 8 am on Wednesday.

With the fresh ones, the total death toll from the virus in the country reached 8,162 while the mortality rate stood at 1.52 percent, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a handout. It said the daily Covid-19 infection rate in the country is now 2.92 percent.

Also Read: Bangladesh seeks vaccines for developing countries under COVAX

Meanwhile, the new cases pushed up the national tally to 536,545, putting the current overall detection rate at 14.53 percent.

Until this morning, 481,306 patients (89.70 percent of the total reported cases) have recovered. So far, 3,693,634 samples were tested, including 15,147 during the past 24 hours.