Bangladesh has brought down the age limit for receiving Covid-19 jabs to 18 years for students to curb the rapid transmission of novel coronavirus across the country.
As part of the initiative, the registration process for 18-year-old students has already begun by including the new category to the government app and website of Surokkha.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Director General Professor ABM Khurshid Alam confirmed the matter on Friday.
He said students have been given the opportunity to register for vaccine shots as government instructions were already in place to reopen educational institutions quickly.
The option to register for Covid-19 jabs for students of 18 years and above could be seen activated on the Surokkha app and website from Thursday night.
The government started a mass vaccination programme on February 7 with a minimum age for registration of 55. Subsequently, the minimum age was reduced in several phases.
Until now, only citizens aged 25 and above were able to sign up for registration for vaccines using the government website, surokkha.gov.bd.
The age limit was lowered to 25 on July 29.
Bangladesh added 159 new coronavirus-related deaths over the last 24 hours on Thursday till 8:00am.
On July 4, Bangladesh reported 153 deaths. Since then, daily deaths had continued to stay above 160.
Health authorities also reported 6,566 new infections from the deadly virus during the same period — the lowest in 27 days.
With these, the overall caseload now stands at 14,47,210 and total fatalities at 24,878, according to the daily press release issued by Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
