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One and a half years after starting administering Covid-19 vaccine to tackle coronavirus infection and save people health authorities are now relaxed as they have already given both doses to their targeted people.
Now they have set their sights on administering booster doses to eligible people and strengthen pediatric Covid-19 vaccination campaign.
Dr Shamsul Haque, Member Secretary of the Covid-19 Vaccine Management Committee at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told the Business Post that the latest campaign was initiated so that more people could be brought under vaccination net as many of the vaccines are going to be expired within a short time.
However, most of the vaccines that are supposed to be expired shortly have already been administered. Besides: “We have preserved some vaccines with long expiry date so that people could get their second dose,” he said.
Asked what would be their next strategy, he said: “We have already administered both doses. We are no longer bothering about first and second doses. Now we are thinking about booster doses and pediatric vaccination campaign,” he said.
A six-day special vaccination campaign began on September 28 marking the birthday of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Later the government decided to extend the special vaccination drive by three days aiming to administer the first and second doses to the unvaccinated people.
Over 11.5 million doses of vaccines were administered during the time.
Meanwhile, the health authorities expanded pediatric vaccination across the country from October 11.
The Covid-19 vaccination of children aged between 5 to 11 years began at district and upazila levels of the country aimed to immunize some 10 million children in a three-week drive.
Since then some 3,732,208 children have got their first dose till Wednesday evening. During the time only 428,247 booster doses have been administered.
Early this week Dr Shamshul confirmed that health authorities had received some 3 million doses of pediatric Pfizer vaccines through the USAID.
The health authorities now have over 1.6 million doses of vaccines to inoculate children.
Dr Shamshul said the government had already ensured required number of vaccines for the country. More vaccines are in the pipeline for both adults and children.
According to the vaccination committee Member Secretary, they still have over 9.7 million doses of adult vaccines except Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and Moderna.
Asked about the wastage of vaccines, the member secretary said initially the number of vaccines wasted was higher though it was much lower (under 1pc) than the standard set by World Health Organization (3-5pc).
