The government has decided to vaccinate at least 33.2 million people at ward level under every union parishads in January to include the underprivileged population under the Covid-19 vaccination program.
The health authorities are going to use the structure and service facilities of Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) to dispense the Sinopharm, Sinovac and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines from Saturday.
EPI personnel previously participated at the Union Parishad level vaccination program.
Confirming the matter, Dr Shamsul Haque, line director (MNC and AH) and member secretary of the national Covid-19 vaccination committee, said EPI staff would provide the first dose in January and the second dose in February.
However, people receiving AstraZeneca shots will have to wait till March to get the second dose.
He said a three-member team would administer Covid-19 vaccines two days a week. They will run other general vaccination programs on two other days while being on campaigning programs on the remaining two days.
According to the EPI unit, they will divide a union parishad into 24 blocks, which means 24 temporary vaccination centres or booths would be established.
Around 300-500 people aged over 18 would be brought under the walk-in vaccination program.
“Keeping the minimum target of vaccinating 300 a day, we are estimating to inoculate around 33.2 million people,” said the line director.
Vaccination at permanent centres at city corporations, districts and upazilas would remain untouched, he confirmed.
“Besides, we will wait for two more weeks as inoculation of school students is going on in the district and upazila level centres. We will see if they could be brought under the services as well,” he added.
According to the Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS), 15,415 people received their booster doses till Wednesday. Over 73 million people got the first dose while over 51 million people have received both doses.
Some 3,403,069 students have received at least the first dose till December 29.