Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has inaugurated the country’s vaccination campaign against Covid-19 from Dhaka’s Kurmitola General Hospital.
The prime minister inaugurated the campaign virtually from Gono Bhaban at 4:05pm on Wednesday.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque arrived at the venue at 03:20pm.
The selected recipients are Senior Staff Nurse Renu Veronica Costa, Dr Ahmed Lutfur Moben, Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, Md Didarul Islam, and Brig Gen M Imran Hamid.
Earlier, the six doses arrived at the hospital at 11:30am.
The condition of all the initial recipients of the vaccine will be monitored for seven days, before the nationwide vaccination campaign begins on February 7, Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said.
In a continuation of the trial run, a further 690 people will be vaccinated at the five government hospitals in Dhaka on Thursday.
DGHS sources said lists with names of all the recipients of the vaccine in the trial run had already been prepared.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital Director Big Gen Nazmul Huda said around 100 frontline workers, including 20 doctors, 20 nurses and other government staff at the hospital, would get the vaccine on Thursday.
During the actual vaccination program, altogether 294 teams will administer vaccines at 45 healthcare centres in Dhaka city. A further 6,431 teams will administer vaccines at 5,268 centres outside the capital, according to the DGHS.
The Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) has already cleared use of the first shipment of 5 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII).