Bangladesh to vaccinate 4cr people from January 2022

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque on Wednesday said the government has set a target to vaccinate four crore people from January 2022.

"Four crore people will be vaccinated each month.... meaning four crore people will receive coronavirus vaccines from next month," he told a meeting at Dhaka club here, an official release said.

The health minister said the government has also set a target to vaccinate people with 28 crore Covid-19 vaccine shots including booster dose. Bangladesh has collected 31 crore vaccines, he said, adding, "Among these collected vaccines, the country is getting adequate quantity of vaccines every month."

To fulfil the target, the government will expand the nationwide vaccination campaign up to ward-level across the country.

With the first and second dose of coronavirus vaccines, nearly 12 crore people of Bangladesh have so far been inoculated, he added. Of them, seven crore people received first dose of vaccine while five crore people got the second shot of Covid-19 jabs, Maleque added.

On December 19, 2021, Bangladesh launched the Covid-19 booster shot campaign with Pfizer vaccine to scale up its efforts for containing the spread of the lethal virus.

While inaugurating the campaign, the health minister said, "Pfizer vaccine will be given as a booster dose....the people, who received any jabs earlier, can get Pfizer vaccine as a booster shot."

Elderly people aged 60 and above, people with comorbidity as well as frontliners will be given the booster dose on priority basis, he added.

"We will not face any scarcity of vaccines. Bangladesh set a target to vaccinate 70 per cent people by April next year," the health minister said.