Bangladesh’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign, to be launched on Wednesday, will be virtually inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Meanwhile, the nationwide vaccination program will start after a week of observation following a dry run on 400-500 people in the capital.
Md Abdul Mannan, secretary of the Health Services Division under the Health Ministry, revealed the information on Saturday at a program held at the National Institute of Kidney Diseases and Urology (NIKDU).
The secretary said the inoculation activities would commence after the prime minister inaugurated the campaign on Wednesday.
A Kurmitola General Hospital nurse would get the first jab of the vaccine, he said, adding that some 24 others from different professions and civil society would be inoculated on the first day as well.
Several hundreds of people at different hospitals in the capital would be vaccinated afterwards and would be kept under observation. The nationwide vaccination would get underway after an observation of how the vaccine affected them, Mannan said.
The health secretary, a couple of days ago, said the authorities would vaccinate 400-500 candidates at four hospitals — Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Mugda Medical College and Hospital, Kuwait-Bangladesh Friendship Government Hospital and Kurmitola General Hospital.
After the dry run, the nationwide vaccination will likely begin on February 8, according to the Health Ministry.
Talking about vaccination candidates, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Director General ABM Khurshid Alam told Dhaka Tribune: “We think that healthcare professionals from Kurmitola General Hospital would be a better fit as it would save us from transport related hassles.”
Bangladesh received two million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from India as gifts on Thursday. A consignment of five million doses of the vaccine will arrive in the country by January 25-26.
Also read: Bangladesh to get ‘contractual supplies’ of Covid-19 vaccine from India soon
Meanwhile, Beximco Pharma Managing Director Nazmul Hasan Papon said Beximco had placed a purchase order of 30 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum Institute of India and the first consignment would arrive within one or two days.
Vaccine registration app to be demonstrated Sunday
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division will give a demonstration of the vaccine registration app, meant for registering candidates online, to the DGHS on Sunday.
DGHS Director (Management Information System) Dr Mizanur Rahman said: “They [the ICT Division] will show us the final interface and feature set of the app on Sunday.”
Dr Dewan Muhammad Humayun Kabir, joint project director of partner organization a2i, said the app, Surakkha, would be ready for use once it passed the registration stage.
