Elderly people, aged 60 years or above, make up around 7.5% of Bangladesh’s total population, but they account for around 80 percent of Covid fatalities due to comorbidities and weakened immune systems, say health experts. As the government is set to embark on a special drive to vaccinate one core people in a week from August 7, they said a strategy should be there to immunise the senior citizens on the top priority basis to reduce the growing Covid death rate in the country. The analysts also said community engagement and mobile vaccination teams are crucial to ensure the vaccines for elderly people, especially in rural areas, as they are less aware of the vaccines while many of them are sick and unable to go to the vaccination centres. Read: Covid fatality rate 90% among elderly villagers, says health minister Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Sunday said one crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be administered among people in a festive mood across the country on August 7-14. Low infection high mortality Talking to UNB, Robed Amin, spokesman of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said the percentage of people aged over 60 infected with the coronavirus is relatively low, but the mortality rate in this group is very high as they suffer from various critical diseases. He said the senior citizens are mostly getting infected by young people while 80% of them are dying from the virus infection. “As per our data, around 80% of Covid deaths in our country are among people in their 60s or older.” Read COVID-19 Delta variant explained: Things to know about this Coronavirus strain Prof AKM Nurun Nabi, founder Chairman of Dhaka University’s Population Sciences department, said elderly people aged 60 years and above constitute around 7.5% (12.5 million) of the country’s total population. “Elderly people are usually vulnerable to any disease as they lose their resistance power and suffer from various chronic and critical diseases. So, the mortality rate of aged Covid-19 patients is very high all over the world."