2.5 crore more Covid vaccine doses to arrive in Sept: Health Minister

Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Monday said that two crore doses of Sinopharm vaccine and 50 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine will reach Bangladesh this month.

“Vaccination drive will be expedited after getting the jabs at a time when the country witnessed a decline in both Covid infections and fatality,” the minister said while talking to reporters after attending the weekly cabinet meeting at the Secretariat he said.

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in a press release said the Bangladesh’s positivity rate stood at 9.82 per cent after testing 27,595 samples at 797 laboratories across the country in a span of 24-hour till 8:00am on Monday.

Meanwhile, the health department recorded 65 new coronavirus-related deaths and 2,710 infections over the same period.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a downward trend of coronavirus infection and fatality after a surge caused by the Delta variant.

Including the latest, overall caseload now stands at 15,17,166 and the total fatalities at 26,628.

Among the fresh fatalities, 32 were males and 33 were females.

Dhaka division logged the highest deaths with 17 fatalities, followed by 13 in Chattogram, 10 each in Khulna and Sylhet, 6 in Rajshahi, 4 in Rangpur, 3 in Barishal and 2 in Mymensingh

Maleque said that out of 17,000 beds in Covid-dedicated hospital across the country, some 12,000-14,000 beds were now vacant including 75 per cent of beds in the hospitals in Dhaka.

He said that the government will start inoculating children aged between 12 and 18 after receiving approval from the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We have already applied to WHO seeking approval over the vaccination of students aged between 12 and 18. Some countries are administering students under the age bracket according to their own protocol,” he said.

Meanwhile, the government started vaccinating teachers while many students also received their jabs, the minister said.

Bangladesh started its mass vaccination campaign on February 7, 2021.

Bangladesh detected first Coronavirus on March 8, 2020 and recorded first death 10 days later.

Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam, replying to a query at the briefing held at the Cabinet Division on Monday following a weekly cabinet meeting, said that the cabinet ordered immediate arrangements for PCR testing in the country’s three international airports – Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet – to provide passengers with covid-test results within four hours ahead of their journey abroad.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chaired the cabinet meeting virtually from her official Ganabhaban residence in the capital.