Home ›› 19 Aug 2021 ›› Governance
The government has so far been able to inoculate only half of the total number of people who registered for Covid-19 vaccination per day, due to a shortage in available vaccine doses in the country.
According to data provided by Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a total of 161, 491 people received their vaccination against 305,965 new registrations in a span of 24 hours till 5:30pm on Tuesday.
As the number of daily inoculations remains nearly half of the daily new registrations, the list of people waiting to their jabs continue to get longer and longer.
In the last 24 hours till 8:00am on Wednesday, Bangladesh recorded 172 new coronavirus-related deaths and 7,248 infections. Including the latest, total caseload reached to 14,40,644 and total fatalities at 24,719.
The DGHS said after testing 41,014 samples at 721 laboratories, the country’s positivity rate stood at 17.67 per cent, down from 19.18 per cent on Tuesday.
In such a situation, many vaccine seekers have expressed their concerns to The Business Post on whether they will be able to get their doses before being infected with the deadly virus.
Among them, many complained that they were yet to receive an appointment date for their vaccination although a month has passed by since they have completed their registration through the government-run website.
Nabonita Rahman Pranti, a private firm employee, said that she had completed her vaccine registration 35 days ago but has not received an appointment date for her inoculation. “I am worried whether I will ever get my vaccine or not,” she said with frustration.
DGHS Director and Spokesperson Md Nazmul Islam said that the health department has been prioritising second dose recipients as the vaccination of a person cannot be completed without the final dose.
“Vaccine doses from different sources are in pipeline. As soon as we will get them, we will start the vaccination in full swing,” he told The Business Post.
He said that the demand for vaccine had increased significantly over time.
According to DGHS officials, Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have been discontinued due to a shortage in supply, while only a few recipients received Moderna vaccine.
Currently, Bangladesh’s vaccination campaign has been mainly administering Sinopharm vaccine from China.
Bangladesh approved eight Corona virus vaccines for emergency use, which also includes Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac, Sputnik V and AstraZeneca of Sweden.
Bangladesh so far administrated 21,728,150 doses of the four different vaccines, of which 59,30,196 people received their final dose.
Till Tuesday, a total of 32,968,466 people have registered for their Covid-19 vaccination across the country. Of them, 15,797,954 people have received their first dose.
The government has received over 30 million doses of vaccine in different forms, including gift, under Covax facility and purchase.
On Monday, the government signed a tripartite agreement with Sinopharm and local Incepta Pharmaceuticals to locally produce vaccines to ensure steady supply.
Bangladesh plans to vaccinate 80 per cent of its 170 million populations by March 2022.
