People in remote areas get Covid-19 vaccines

The mass vaccination campaign has also found its way in hard-to-reach areas including the remote hills and islands as part of the country-wide week-long inoculation programme started on August 7.

Officials said they could administer 94 per cent to 96 per cent of allocated jabs to people in remote areas including Rangamati’s Baratholi union under Belaichari upazila and various unions in Bhola’s Monpura upazila.

A joint cooperation of the armed forces and local administration made the task possible.

Bhola Civil Surgeon KM Shafiquzzaman told The Business Post a total of 33 unions in seven upazilas under the districts were identified as hard-to-reach areas as the islands on the Bay of Bengal have no road communication with the district headquarter.

“With the help of Bangladesh Navy we could administer 94 per cent of 48,800 doses of vaccines,” he said over phone.

According to Lalmonirhat Civil Surgeon Nirmalendu Roy, they could use 28,478 doses out of 29,400 allocated for the district, taking the advantage of Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).

“We could reach the Brahmaputra and Tista river islands using the EPI setup,” he said.

Bipash Khisha, civil surgeon of the hilly district of Rangamati, echoed the same as Mr Roy. He said a helicopter of the Bangladesh Air Force helped them reach Baratholi union in Bilaischari upazila under the district on Tuesday, a day after the scheduled vaccination drive.

“We reached people at 49 unions on Monday and the remaining one union came under our vaccination programme on Tuesday. 600 doses of vaccines were sent for the hill tract union of Baratholi,” he added.

The mass special vaccination campaign came underway when Covid deaths and infections were both high across the country.

In its regular health bulletin, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) recorded another 264 new coronavirus-related deaths and 11,164 new positive cases till 8am Tuesday.

With the latest figure, the country’s overall caseload now stands at 13,76,322 and the total fatalities account for 23,161 since the virus was first detected in the country on March 8, 2020.

The health authorities reported the latest figures after testing 47,424 samples at 708 laboratories across the country. In the past 24 hours, the positivity rate dropped to 23.54 per cent from Monday’s 24.52 per cent.

Earlier, the government declared to bring 1 crore people under the mass vaccination drive, but due to inadequate stock, the target reduced to 3.5 million. The government has decided to halt administering the first dose of Moderna vaccine after August 12.

The second dose of Sinopharm vaccine will start on August 14.

Chinese Deputy Chief of Mission in Dhaka Hualong Yan in a social media post on Tuesday said a consignment of 17 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine will shortly arrive in Dhaka from Beijing.

With a fresh stock of vaccine doses in hand, the government aims to inoculate 80 per cent of population, each getting two shots.