The health authorities in Bangladesh will start administering the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines, received under the Covax scheme, from Monday.
Md Shamsul Haque, a line director of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said during a daily bulletin on Sunday that 360 people will get the jabs on Monday at three vaccination centres in Dhaka as part of a dry run.
The vaccine will be administered at the Sheikh Russel Gastroliver Institute and Hospital, the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) and the Kurmitola General Hospital.
A total of 120 people will be administered the vaccine at each centre, said DGHS Line Director Haque.
“The regular inoculation will start after an observation period of 7 to 10 days,” he said before adding a few other centres will start administering the vaccine then.
On May 31, Bangladesh received a consignment of 100,620 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the first under the international vaccine-sharing platform Covax.
The vaccine's preservation temperature ranges between -90°C and -60°C. However, it can remain stable for five days at 2°C to 8°C and for two hours at 30°C, according to health authorities.
It is the third vaccine Bangladesh is using in its inoculation drive against the coronavirus.
The country has administered around 10 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
A drive to administer over 1 million Sinopharm shots as gift from China is going on.
