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Govt to lower vaccination age to 18

24 Jul 2021 00:00:00 | Update: 24 Jul 2021 10:35:39
Govt to lower vaccination age to 18
A nurse injects Moderna vaccine dose to a man at Mugda Nagar Matrisadan Hospital in Dhaka on July 13, 2021. — Focus Bangla Photo

Staff Correspondent

The Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services Professor Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam on Friday reiterated that the government is working towards lowering the vaccination age to 18 as Bangladesh continues to record a high rate of Coronavirus infection.

Talking to the media crew after visiting Mugda Medical College and Hospital, the health official said in line with the spike in transmission, demand for oxygen has increased, but claimed that the government has sufficient supply of oxygen in hospitals.

The daily normal demand for oxygen in the country is 79-90 tons while it increased to 200 now.

“We have sufficient supply amid the high demand,” he said, adding that the health department is working on the age reduction and on how to ease the vaccination process.

At first, the government set the target to vaccinate people aged above 45 but later reduced the age limit to 40 and then to 35. Now the government is allowing those aged 30 to get the vaccine shots.

Meanwhile on Friday, 166 people died of Covid while 6,364 positive cases were detected within a span of 24 hours till Friday 8am, according to the DGHS regular press release.

With the latest toll, the country recorded a total of 18,851 deaths and 11,46,564 infections since the first case of coronavirus was identified on March 8, 2020.

According to the department of health services, they have recorded 31.05 Covid-19 positive cases while the total average positivity rate is 15.5 per cent among 20,493 samples tested in 639 laboratories as of Friday.

In the meantime, 9,006 people recovered from the virus, raising the total number of recovery to 9,78,616.

Among the latest deaths, 95 were male while the rest are female. Of them, 60 died in Dhaka, 33 each in Chattogram and Khulna, seven in Rajshahi, 10 in Barishal, eight in Sylhet, 12 in Rangpur and three in Mymensingh.

Among the deaths, 86 were above the age group of 60, 32 were between 51 and 60, 24 were between 41 and 50, 15 were between 31 and 40, seven between 21 and 30 and two between 11 and 20.

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