Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said the government has planned to gradually bring students 12 and above under the vaccination coverage. Hasina said this while replying to a tabled question from Jatiya Party MP Dr Rustam Ali Farazi during PM’s question-answer session in Parliament. Read: University students must complete vaccine registration by Sept 27: Dipu Moni The Prime Minister said the government has a plan to vaccinate 80 percent of the country’s population. To bring 50 percent of people under vaccination coverage by December 2021, the government is taking measures as per the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO), she told the House. To make that happen, Hasina said, the government will provide vaccine jabs for the students aged 12 or above.

Covid-19 in India may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity with a low or moderate level of transmission going on, according to the chief scientist of the UN health agency. The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus. It is very different to the epidemic stage when the virus overwhelms a population. Read:India gives emergency approval for world's first COVID-19 DNA vaccine "As far as India is concerned that seems to be what is happening and because of the size of India and heterogeneity of population and immunity status in different parts of the country in different pockets. It is very feasible that the situation may continue like this with ups and downs in different parts of the country, particularly where there are more susceptible populations," World Health Organisation (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan said in an interview Wednesday. "We may be entering some kind of stage of endemicity where low-level transmission or moderate level transmission is going on but we are not seeing the kinds of exponential growth and peaks that we saw a few months ago," Swaminathan said. During April-May this year, India witnessed a devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read:'India likely to have Covid shot for children by September' "I hope by the end of 2022, we will be in that position that we have achieved vaccine coverage, say 70%, and then countries can get back to normal, " Swaminathan said. "Although it is possible that children could get infected in a third wave in large numbers, it is very unlikely that they will fall seriously ill. However, it is advisable to be prepared for more infections in children," the WHO chief scientist said.

Bangladesh on Wednesday saw record growth in the daily COVID-19 cases as the health authorities confirmed the detection of the highest 3,190 new coronavirus patients in the span of 24 hours, raising the total number to 74,865.   During the same period, the death toll rose to 1012 with the death of 37 more people during the same period.

Bangladesh on Tuesday saw the highest number of single day new cases and deaths.

Bangladesh saw another spike in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths as the health authorities announced the detection of 2,423 new cases and 35 deaths in the last 24 hours on Thursday.

The health authorities on Monday confirmed the detection of another 2,381 new coronavirus patients across the country in the last 24 hours, taking the number of confirmed cases in the country to 49,534.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 6 million on Sunday morning, according to data provided by the Johns Hopkins University.

Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR)  sent 5,000  viral transport medium (VTM) kits to the Directorate General of Health Services(DGHS) on Tuesday.

The Industries Ministry on Wednesday stated that considering the country’s national economy, the production, supply, marketing, and sale of tobacco products should continue.

Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader on Monday said quick testing has now become imperative in the country to deal with coronavirus.