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The well designed vaccination system of the country got interrupted twice during Covid 19 pandemic leaving millions of children aged below five out of regular vaccination facilities but through special arrangements the health authorities brought 1.5 million such children under the vaccination net.
Officials of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said some 1,485,454 children who dropped out or missed their scheduled routine vaccines have been identified and vaccinated through special arrangement during the pandemic.
Dr Md Tanvir Hossen, deputy program manager (DPM of EPI and Surveillance) under EPI programme of DGHS disclosed the information while giving a presentation during the inauguration programme for observing World Vaccination Week 2023.
The regular vaccination programme was interrupted in April 2020 following the emergence of Covid, and a second time in September–October of 2021.
He said several lockdowns were enforced during the pandemic days to ensure vaccines were available for all. Special drives were taken in 2021 and 2022 on the occasion of World vaccination Week.
“The activities were in place from the week to the end of the year. Health authorities identified and immunised over 1.06 million vaccine drop-out children in 2021 among which 59,107 were not vaccinated at all while 1,003,396 were partially vaccinated.
“Again in 2022, some 422,951 vaccine drop-out children were identified among which 24,188 children was zero vaccinated and 1,003,396 partially vaccinated children.”
Attending the programme as its chief guest, Health Minister Zahid Maleque admitted that there were some disruptions in the vaccination system during pandemic time.
“But we have recovered from it and the vaccination rate has gone up over 90%,” he added.
The minister said the country’s strong EPI system allowed the country to achieve millennium development goals, increased life expectancy and also facilitated the administering of the covid vaccine in a shorter period, eventually leading to fewer deaths in the country from the disease.
