Bagerhat students shining in vaccinating 

Students in Bagerhat have raced ahead of most members of their cohorts in other parts of the country, when it comes to getting vaccinated against Covid-19.

This has put them in a strong position to fully resume in-person schooling with pre-pandemic schedules ahead of most other districts, given the government’s mandate that only the students who are vaccinated could attend schools.

Driven by this challenge, all the students aged 12-17 in 9 upazilas of Bagerhat, have successfully completed their first doses of the vaccine. They are now up for the second dose.

Already this week, long queues of students were seen forming during a visit to the Bagerhat Sadar Hospital - all belonging to the same group, lining up now for their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

Deputy Commissioner (DC) Mohammad Azizur Rahman said, “We have successfully brought all students aged 12-17 under the vaccination programme. Now efforts are being made to bring all students aged above 18 under vaccination by January.”

Bagerhat District Education Officer Kamruzzaman said that a list of students above 18 in the district have been made. According to it, in Bagerhat district there are 33,112 students above 18. Of them 29,531 got their first dose. Remaining 3,531 have registered through the app.

Both the parents and the teachers are happy that the district administration managed to bring all the students under vaccination. They have highly praised the efforts made to make the students aware of the importance of vaccinating.

Bagehat Civil Surgeon Dr Jalal Uddin said, our target was to vaccinate a total of 1,36,651 students aged 12-17 but we have administered the first dose vaccine to 1,41,308 students within this age range. This took the vaccination rate in the district to 103 per cent. The additional 4,657 students were dropouts.

Students received vaccines in 14 booths in 9 upazilas of the district; they came to the centers with enthusiasm and received the vaccines, Dr Jalal Uddin said.

So far, 11,669 students have received the second dose of vaccine, he added.

Pradeep Bakshi, Health and Family Planning Officer of Bagerhat, said administering the first dose vaccine began on December 5. Huge promotion was made for the vaccination programme. Now the second dose is being given, he said.

Chittaranjan Pal, headmaster of Bagerhat Government Girls’ High School said, all 1,330 students at his school received the first dose of the vaccine.