Children aged 5-12 to get Pfizer Covid vaccine

Six months after allowing people aged 12 to 17 to be inoculated with Covid-19 vaccines, health authorities have now decided to vaccinate children aged 5 to 12.

Although the new target population has not been closed, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said children aged from 5 to 12 will be given Pfizer vaccines.

Confirming the matter, Additional Director General (Planning) of DGHS Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora said that to get vaccines they (children) are needed to be registered through the Surokkha App using birth certificate.

Replying to a question after attending a function in Dhaka on Monday she urged the parents of those children, who do not have any birth registration certificate, to get the certificate as soon as possible.

Sources from DGHS said that the date of starting the vaccination could not be known as they are waiting for vaccines and syringes for the inoculation.

For inoculating children, special syringes would be needed that would be provided along with vaccines under the Covax facilities, they confirmed.

Although Western and developed countries started inoculating children aged six to 11 from late last year, Bangladesh approved it only after World Health Organization advised it recently.

As a trial is expecting to come to an end regarding vaccinating children aged 11 months to four years, vaccinating this age group will be a further progress in the vaccinating process.

DGHS has provided first dose to 128,966,389, which is 108.17 per cent against their target population till Monday evening and now they are trying to bring more population under the facilities.

Among the first dose receiver, some 118,841,807 people got the second dose, 99.68 per cent of the targeted population. Till now some 28,328,685 people received booster doses, some 23.84 per cent of the targeted population.