6,321 vaccinated at Karail slum

More than 6,000 residents of Karail slum in the capital’s Mohakhali were vaccinated on Tuesday, the first day of the vaccination campaign targeting the vulnerable people living in Dhaka slums.

Dhaka North City Corporation officials said that any slum dwellers aged above 18 were allowed for the vaccination.

DNCC is conducting a free vaccination drive from 11 vaccination centres.

DNCC chief executive officer Selim Reza said that they want to bring at least 80 per cent of total slum residents under the vaccination coverage.

DNCC chief health officer Brig Gen Zobaidur Rahman and local councillor Md Mofizur Rahman among others visited the vaccination drive.

Health minister Zahid Maleque at a press conference on Monday said that the vaccination programme targeting slum people will start from Karail slum on Tuesday and will be expanded to other slums in Dhaka in phases.

He declared that 3 lakh slum people in Dhaka will be vaccinated in phases.

Vaccination coverage among the slum people in Dhaka and other cities is comparatively lesser mainly for the complex registration process, public health campaigners claimed.

Zahid Maleque said that realising the reality, the government has initiated the vaccination drive targeting the people living in informal housing.

The poor and uneducated people living in slums were given the vaccine without prior registration.