The central office of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) at Mohakhali has started sending frozen boxes to districts outside the capital as per requirements.
DGHS Line Director (MNC & AH) Dr Md Shamsul Haque said the authorities had begun distributing the vaccines, which were stored at Beximco warehouse in Tongi, to the districts across the country from Thursday afternoon.
With seven million vaccine doses in stock, the government is going to start the Covid-19 vaccination program across Bangladesh from February 7.
City dwellers, who are interested in taking the Covid-19 vaccine, have started to fill out online forms since Friday.
Our correspondents from several districts reported that consignments of vaccines have started to arrive since Friday morning.
In Barisal, some 312,000 of Covid-19 doses reached five districts in the division out of the six, except for Pirojpur.
At least 36,000 doses of the vaccine are scheduled to arrive in Pirojpur from Khulna division within January 31, said Dr Bashudev Kumar Das, divisional health director.
Initially, a total of 348,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines were allocated for the entire division in the first phase.
Jhalokati Deputy Commissioner Md Johar Ali received the vaccine at the Civil Surgeon's Office in the morning.
In Rajshahi, shots of Covid-19 vaccines started reaching eight districts on Friday, but the vaccination campaign is likely to be delayed for more than a week to complete necessary preparations.
Rajshahi Civil Surgeon Quayum Talukdar received a total 170,000 doses of vaccine in the morning
Beximco Pharmaceuticals supplied vaccines to the cold storage units of district headquarters, he said.
"The vaccination campaign will start only when the preparations are fool proof. We still have to train health workers and prepare the vaccination centres," he said.
All necessary preparations will be completed by February 7, a date scheduled by the government for nationwide inoculation, he added.
In Bogra, a total of 12,000 vials of vaccines reached the district headquarters last morning.
The consignment is enough to inoculate 180,000 people, said Dr Gawsul Azim, civil surgeon of Bogra.
The vaccine is now being preserved at the district's EPI store, he said.
In Natore, some 48,000 people will be inoculated in the first phase. Adequate doses of vaccines have already reached Natore, said Civil Surgeon Dr Mizanur Rahman.
“The health workers will get the vaccine first as frontliners,” he said.
Earlier, on Monday, five million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), arrived in Dhaka via an Air India flight.
Five more batches – each containing five million vaccines – are scheduled to arrive in phases over the next five months.
India has also sent an additional two million doses as a gift to Bangladesh, which arrived on Thursday.
The vaccine doses — called AZD1222 under SII’s brand name Covishield — are stored in a warehouse of Beximco Pharma, which is the exclusive distributor of the vaccine, in Gazipur for now.