Runu Veronica Costa, senior staff nurse at Kurmitola General Hospital in Dhaka, is the first person in Bangladesh to get shot of Covid-19 vaccine, as the country has begun a trial run of its vaccination program.
She received her first dose of vaccine at 4:09pm on Wednesday.
After Runu, the vaccine was administered to Dr Ahmed Lutfur Moben of Kurmitola General Hospital at 4:10pm, Prof Dr Nasima Sultana of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) at 4:12pm, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Md Didarul Islam at 4:13pm, and Brig Gen M Imran Hamid of Bangladesh Army at 4:14pm.
Earlier in the afternoon, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the campaign virtually from Ganabhaban at around 4pm.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque arrived at the venue at around 3:20pm.
The vaccine doses arrived at the hospital at 11:30am on the same day.
After the five government employees, 21 other selected people were given the vaccine shots, including two journalists - Masud Rayhan Polash of NTV and Mohammad Al-Masum Mollah of The Daily Star.
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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 said.
During the trial run, a further 690 people will be vaccinated at 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 nationwide vaccination program, which is scheduled for February 7, a total of 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 city, according to the DGHS.
The Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) has already cleared use of the first shipment of five million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
