vaccination
Vaccination campaign for school students to begin within a week: DGHS chief
A new campaign to vaccinate school students aged 12 and above will start within a week, said DGHS chief ABM Khurshid Alam on Tuesday.
“The inoculation drive for school children between the ages of 12 and 17 will start this week,” said the DG of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) while talking to reporters following an event at the health department.
He said 21 centres have been selected at the district and city corporation levels across the country for this purpose.
“The Pfizer vaccine will be used for children,” he said, adding, “School authorities will provide us with the lists of their students. We’ll pass that onto the Surokkha app server afterwards.”
Read: Govt preparing to vaccinate students aged 12 and above
The DGHS head said jabs will initially be pushed to 50-100 selected children on trial basis.
“We run trials before giving any vaccine. Fifty to 100 children will be selected for this,” he said.
Earlier this month, Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni said preparations are underway to vaccinate school students who are above 12 years old.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the vaccination of those who are under 18 years of age in Bangladesh, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque.
Read: Vaccination of students aged 12-17 to begin within 20 days
"I’ve met WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and he has given a nod to it [vaccination of those under 18] when we sought his advice on vaccination of students," he said.
The health minister said students between 12-17 years will be inoculated with US-produced Pfizer vaccine doses as it is suitable for them. “We’re preparing for that. We’ve 6 million doses of Pfizer vaccine in stocks; we’ll get another four million doses soon. We’ve no jab crisis now.
Vaccination campaign in Dhaka University starts from Monday to jab its students, teachers and staff
Dhaka University on Monday launched vaccination campaign at its medical
centre, aiming to inoculate its teachers, students and staff.
The campaign was inaugurated around 9:30am with Sinopharm vaccine jabs, said the officials.
On the first day of the campaign, students, teachers and staffs of the university were seen
lining up at Martyred Intellectual Dr Muhammad Murtaza Medical Centre since morning to get jabbed.
Hasina’s birthday celebrated amid mass vaccination campaign
The 75th birthday of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also the president of Bangladesh Awami League, now in the USA, was celebrated across the country amid a special mass vaccination on Tuesday.
Hasina, the eldest among the five children of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, was born at Tungipara in Gopalganj on September 28, 1947.
The ruling Awami League and its affiliated organisations celebrated the day by holding various programmes, highlighting her life and achievements.
Various programmes like discussions, doa and milad-mahfil, special prayers and photo exhibitions were organised in the capital and elsewhere across the country marking her birthday.
More importantly, a nationwide mass vaccination campaign was conducted on the day targeting to inoculate 80 lakh people on the occasion of Hasina's birthday.
As part of the AL central programmes, a discussion was held at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital in the morning.
At the function, AL general secretary Obaidul Quader said Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina was born for the cause of history, and now she herself is history.
Besides, doa and milad-mahfil were arranged at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque and all other mosques throughout the country after Zahr prayers.
Read: PM Hasina’s 75th birthday to be celebrated Tuesday
Vaccination of students aged 12-17 to begin within 20 days: Health Minister
Vaccination of students aged between 12 to 17 years will begin within the next 20 days, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Saturday.
The minister announced this at a meeting at Manikganj municipality office premises.
“I had a conversation with the Prime Minister today in this regard. According to her decision, various activities will begin from the next week to vaccinate the children against Covid-19,” said the minister.
The children will be inoculated with US-made Pfizer vaccine doses as it is suitable for them, he said adding that all arrangements have been made to collect the vaccine doses.
Also read: University students must complete vaccine registration by Sept 27: Dipu Moni
As schools and colleges have already been reopened bringing the children under vaccination coverage is necessary for their safety, he added.
The minister also said in the next campaign more than one crore people will get shots.
Already 2.5 crore people have received the shots with 1.5 crore inoculated with two doses, said Zahid Maleque.
20 lakh more Sinopharm doses to reach Dhaka soon
Twenty lakh more doses of the Sinophamrm vaccine are expected to reach Dhaka from China early Tuesday.
The vaccine doses are scheduled to land at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on a flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines at 2.30am, according to the health ministry.
On August 16, Bangladesh, China and Incepta Vaccine Limited signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the coproduction of Sinopharm vaccine in Bangladesh.
Incepta, a leading pharmaceutical company of Bangladesh, will bring in bulk and bottling, labelling and finishing of the vaccine will be done locally, making the price relatively very cheap.
China has provided 2.1 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine as a gift to Bangladesh, 3.4 million doses under the COVAX facility, and 8 million doses as part of an arrangement of a large-scale commercial purchase so far.
READ: MoU signing on coproduction of Sinopharm jab Aug 16
Till now, 13.5 million Sinopharm vaccines have arrived from China. Of them, 1.1 million shots were received under the COVAX facility.
DU asks students to provide their vaccination status
Dhaka University students have been asked to provide information regarding Covid-19 vaccination by logging in with their institutional e-mail account.
If they face any trouble while doing this, they were also asked to communicate with the respective department or the admin of the institutional email accounts, said a press release issued from Dhaka University on Wednesday.
READ: DU dorms to reopen September 1 for final year and Masters students
Since the information about vaccination that was emailed to the ICT cell earlier couldn't be linked to the database, students would need to provide the information from their respective profiles by logging in through the institutional e-mail ID at the following address: https:/ssl.du.ac.bd/studentlogin
The move seems to be a part of the university’s preparation to reopen after a long closure since Covid-19 struck Bangladesh in March last year.
READ: Covid-19 vaccine: DU students asked to get registered by March 31
No more mass Covid vaccination drive as supply is low, says health minister
Bangladesh will not conduct any new mass Covid inoculation drive as the supply of vaccine doses is much lower than the demand, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Monday.
“No more mass inoculation drives will be held in the country now as we do not have adequate vaccines in hand and we’ll not use the word ‘mass’ in future,” he told reporters at the Secretariat.
“We will call people to take jabs whenever we have vaccines in our hand,” he said.
“Those who will get SMS will go to the centres and we do not want to see any no long queues in front of vaccination centres,” said the minister.
READ: No alternative to mass vaccination of apparel workers: BGMEA
Some eight crore people or more can be brought under Covid vaccination within next January and February if the vaccines are available, he hoped.
“A total of 60 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine will arrive within September in the country and some will arrive this month,” he said adding “We have done a lot of work with vaccines in the past 15 days and many orders have been placed.”
A total of 7.5 crore doses of vaccine has been ordered from China. Besides, we have also got offers from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and we have procured those. I think there will be no scarcity of vaccines,” said Zahid.
“If we get the 16 crore doses of vaccine, we will be able to bring eight crore people under the vaccination programme which will arrive within December,” he said.
“There is a directive to vaccinate workers and we are giving Covid jabs to front liners. All the factory workers will be vaccinated in phases as we want all citizens to get Covid jabs and be safe. The mortality rate among those who received the jabs is less,” he added.
READ: Mass vaccination only solution to Covid crisis: GM Quader
“Now the process to get second doses is underway and we are giving the second dose one month after receiving first dose and the prime minister has already asked to reduce the gap between the two doses and we are thinking to reduce it within 15-20 days,” said the minister.
The minister also urged the country's people to follow health guidelines.
Lower age bar for Covid vaccination further: JS body
The parliamentary standing committee on ministry of health and family welfare on Wednesday recommended lowering the age limit to receive Covid vaccines further from the existing 25 years.
It also asked the government to promptly complete the ongoing recruitment of physicians (2,000 assistant surgeons) following the recommendation of the Bangladesh Public Service Commission.
The parliamentary committee made the recommendations at its 10th meeting, held with its chairman Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim in the chair at the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) Bhaban, said a Parliament handout.
READ: PM’s intervention sought over JS body’s suggestion on female officials in FF guard of honour
The committee also suggested the government to take necessary steps for the quick disbursement from the stimulus package, announced by the Prime Minister, among the families of the physicians, nurses and health workers who died of Covid.
In the meeting, the latest coronavirus situation was discussed and three bills – Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute Bill, 2021; Medical Colleges (Governing Bodies) (Repeal) Bill, 2021; and Medical Degrees (Repeal) Bill, 2021 were reviewed.
The parliamentary watchdog recommended the government to follow the Government-to-Government (G2G) method in order to make the vaccine production and inoculation easier.
A subcommittee was formed with AFM Ruhal Haque as its convener to scrutinize Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute Bill, 2021 further.
The committee finalised its reports after completing the scrutiny of Medical Colleges (Governing Bodies) (Repeal) Bill, 2021; and Medical Degrees (Repeal) Bill, 2021.
READ: JS body for reopening closed jute mills
Committee members AFM Ruhal Haque (Satkhira-3), Mohibur Rahman Manik (Sunamganj-5), Md Mansur Rahman (Rajshahi-5), Md Abdul Aziz (Sirajganj-3), Sayeda Zakia Noor (Kishoreganj-1) and Md Amirul Alam Milon (Bagerhat-4) attended the meeting.
The Health Services Division Secretary and the Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services were among the high officials who were present at the meeting.
Vaccination: UNHCR lauds Bangladesh for inclusion of Rohingyas
UNHCR has welcomed the commencement of the vaccination of Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar in line with national authorities’ broader public health efforts.
"We are grateful to the Government of Bangladesh for having included Rohingya refugees in the vaccination campaign," said Johannes Van Der Klaauw, UNHCR’s Representative in Bangladesh, on Wednesday.
The UN refugee agency said equitable inclusion of Rohingyas in allocation of vaccines is critical to curbing the spread of the ongoing pandemic.
"The Rohingya refugee and host community volunteers have an essential frontline role in containing the spread of COVID-19 in the camps. The first step in fully protecting communities; however, is through the rollout of vaccination," UNHCR’s Representative in Bangladesh emphasized.
On Tuesday, over 4,000 Rohingyas received their first COVID-19 vaccine, as part of a national vaccination drive to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
Read: Covid kills 237 more in Bangladesh as Delta strain takes hold
Rohingyas eligible for vaccination in the first cohort include some 48,000 individuals over 55 years of age. The drive will continue until August 17.
The vaccination drive for Rohingyas is being led by the Bangladesh authorities with technical support from the UN Refugee Agency, the World Health Organization and other humanitarian partners.
The fight against the pandemic has been led by thousands of refugee and host community volunteers, who have worked since 2020 on informing refugees about health and hygiene, monitoring any signs of illness, and connecting the refugee community with critical health services.
While the threat of COVID-19 remains critical, their efforts have helped to prevent and curb outbreaks and have saved lives, said the UN agency.
The vaccinations follow the devastating monsoon rains that hit Cox’s Bazar District over the past weeks, causing flash floods and landslides which killed eight Rohingya refugees and 15 Bangladeshis in the host communities.
Read: Vaccination drive in Bangladesh: Procurement of 60 mln Sinopharm doses gets nod
Almost 25,000 refugees were displaced due to landslides, flooding, wind and storms.
Thousands of facilities have been damaged including primary health clinics, distribution points and latrines.
Access was hindered due to damage to roads, pathways and bridges.
UNHCR’s Emergency Response Teams, and partners, refugee and host community volunteers were deployed to assess the damage, to provide support to families forced to relocate, to begin immediate repairs of shelters and other site improvements and to ensure access to essential services for all.
While the weather has improved over the last few days, the monsoon season will continue for another couple of months followed by the cyclone season.
Frustration grows as chaos continues at Bangladesh’s vaccination centres
Vaccination centres across the country drew huge crowds on the 5th day of the mass vaccination drive, creating a chaotic situation everywhere and raising the risk of the virus transmission.
After a reality check at different vaccination centers, UNB correspondents saw long queues of people standing close to each other with little or no regard to social distancing rules.
Hundreds of jab-seekers, both male and female, turned up at the small vaccination centres with or without online registrations, overwhelming its medical staff.
The medical staff at the vaccination centres and the vaccine aspirants pointed fingers at each other because of mismanagement and slow pace of vaccination.
According to the UNB correspondents, the number of staff was too inadequate to smoothly vaccinate such a huge number of people.
As the ruthless Delta variant of Covid-19 keeps spreading like wildfire, Bangladesh on Saturday kicked off another phase of its mass vaccination drive aimed at inoculating 35 lakh people in six days.
However, the drive has not been free of controversies as mismanagement and anomalies across the country became a topic of discussions in the last few days.
Even on the very first day of the drive, UNB reported about the chaotic situation which arose at the city’s Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital.
Nearly 4,000 vaccine seekers, including men and women, were seen waiting in queues in the corridors of its first and second floors with the vaccination going on at a snail’s pace.
Read: Covid kills 237 more in Bangladesh as Delta strain takes hold
Outraged by the “mismanagement”, the vaccine seekers said the situation turned worse as there was no arrangement for women to stand in any separate queue.
Tired of the long wait in the queue, the irate crowds got involved in quarrels with Ansar personnel and the hospital staff.
Some of them were seen trying to push each other to enter the vaccination rooms venting their anger amid chaos.
Inside the vaccination rooms, it was found that only two to three nurses were providing shots while another two or three medical staff were checking vaccination registration papers. They had to struggle a lot to cope with the situation for lack of manpower.