The government has scrapped the 'on-spot' registration for coronavirus doses to avoid crowd in centres and properly run the vaccination campaign, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said Thursday.
"On-spot registration got a huge response compared to online enrollment. People who registered online are facing problems at the vaccination centres. The vaccination process is getting delayed and the elderlies are suffering much," he said. "That's why 'on-spot' registration had to be called off."
Minister Maleque said more people are now getting registered to get the jab.
So far, 1,029,457 people have registered through surokkha.gov.bd. Among them, 14,676 have already received messages for their first shots, he said.
"More than 300,000 people have been vaccinated in the last four days," he said at a programme in Dhaka.
People over 40 to get the vaccine
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday instructed the authorities concerned for reducing the age limit from 55 years to 40 to get registered for vaccination to expand and accelerate the drive.
The government rolled out a countrywide mass Covid-19 vaccination drive on Sunday.
On January 27, Prime Minister Hasina launched the Covid-19 vaccination programme at Kurmitola General Hospital through videoconference.
Health Minister Maleque said Bangladesh currently has seven million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine brought from India's Serum Institute.
Bangladesh's coronavirus situation
Bangladesh's daily coronavirus infection rate fell to 2.65 percent on Thursday as the country ramps up vaccination drive and awareness campaigns.
The health authorities recorded nine Covid-19 related deaths and 418 fresh cases in the last 24 hours until morning.
So far, Bangladesh has confirmed 539,571 coronavirus cases, including 8,248 fatalities. The mortality rate stood at 1.53 percent, according to a handout from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Until morning, 485,971 patients (90.07 percent) have recovered.
Bangladesh reported its first Coronavirus cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18 last year.
So far, 3,808,017 samples, including 15,776 in the past 24 hours, have been tested. The overall infection rate is 14.17 percent.
