Vaccine doses will reach all the 64 districts of the country by Monday as the mass vaccination drive is scheduled to start on February 7, said Director General (DG) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr Khurshed Alam.
All the preparations – including the arrangement of equipment and booths – have been taken across the country for the vaccination campaign, Khurshed Alam said at a program held at the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine in Dhaka, reports UNB.
The training of health workers, he said, will conclude by Monday, when a virtual meeting with the focal persons in upazilas will also be held.
A total of 7,400 health teams have been working to implement the vaccination drive, he added.
On February 4, the “Surokkha app” will be available on the play store. Interested people will be able to register for vaccines online, the DG stated.
The registration process is already underway through the website. Some 15,000 people have got registered till now, he said, adding that DGHS volunteers would help those who would fail to get registered through online at the upazila level.
The Health Ministry rolled out the inoculation drive at five government hospitals in Dhaka on January 28, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Covid-19 vaccination program.
Among the districts, Chittagong got the most vaccines (4,56,000) on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, as many as 60,000 doses reached Kurigram and in Nilphamari each, while 48,000 doses were transported to Bagerhat around 2pm. The hill district of Rangamati received 12,000 doses, Thakurgaon got 48,000 doses, Naogaon 84,400 and Sylhet 22,800 – mostly in the morning.
PM vaccination campaign
On January 27, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched the Covid-19 vaccination program at Kurmitola General Hospital via video conference.
At the inauguration, five people were vaccinated in the virtual presence of the prime minister. Runu Veronica Costa, a senior staff nurse at Kurmitola General Hospital, was the first to get the shot in the country.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said 7 million doses of the vaccine, Covishield, are currently available in Bangladesh.
"The [Oxford-AstraZeneca] vaccine is the safest in the world. The treatment facilities are in place in case of any side-effects," the minister said Wednesday.
Bangladesh first received two million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from India as a gift and later five million more doses of the imported lot from the Serum Institute of India reached the country.
In order to get vaccinated, one can register on www.surokkha.gov.bd.