The government has decided to suspend administering the first dose of the Moderna vaccine from Thursday and start administering the second dose.
The decision was announced on Tuesday through a notice signed by Dr Shamsul Haque, line director of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and member secretary of the Covid-19 Vaccine Deployment Taskforce Committee.
The DGHS started administering the Moderna vaccine from July 13 after receiving the first consignment of 2.5 million doses from the US under Covax facilities.
Bangladesh later received another consignment of 3 million doses of vaccine under the same scheme.
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As the country has a stock of 5.5 million doses, the health authorities decided to keep half of it for the second dose. In general, there is a gap of 28 days between the two doses.
Till Monday afternoon, the DGHS administered 1,908,549 doses of the vaccine.
The circular however said administering the Moderna vaccine as the first dose would continue at the centres depending on the stock.
The health authorities also decided to start administering the second dose of the Sinopharm vaccine from August 14.
Also Read - Bangladesh receives 1.7 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine under Covax scheme
The DGHS administered some 6,844,085 doses of Sinopharm vaccine till Monday afternoon, leaving 1,255,915 doses of the vaccine in government hands.
Bangladesh also received another 1.7 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine under Covax facilities on Tuesday.
With the latest development, Bangladesh has now received 9.8 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.
The country is now administering vaccine doses developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Pfizer, and Moderna.
On July 8, Bangladesh resumed its mass vaccination program against Covid-19 after a hiatus caused by a low supply of vaccine doses.
