Bangladesh plans to inoculate 50 million people within this year
About 450,000 people needed to be vaccinated a day to reach the target
Bangladesh plans to inoculate 50 million people within this year
Tribune Report
- Published at 10:57 pm July 3rd, 2021
A nurse injects the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to a person at BSMMU Hospital in Dhaka on Monday, June 21, 2021 Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune
About 333,000 people needed to be vaccinated a day to reach the target.
The government plans to vaccinate 50 million people by December this year, despite only 4.28 million people having been vaccinated with both doses in the first six months of the vaccination campaign that commenced on February 7.
To meet the target, the country will need to vaccinate about 333,000 people each day. However, over the past six months, an average of 28,000 people have been vaccinated each day. The highest number of vaccine doses that have been administered on a single day, on February 18, in the country is about 262,000.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said the country has the capacity to vaccinate 350,000 people each day, and the main barrier to meeting the vaccination target is people’s reluctance to get the vaccine.
“People need to be proactive in getting the vaccine. Bangladesh wants to motivate people in achieving the vaccination target, as we will get about 100 million vaccine doses from various sources by the end of the year,” he added
4.5 million doses arrive
Bangladesh received 4.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the US and China in the past 48 hours, in a major boost to the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination campaign that resumed on Thursday.
Two consignments with a little over 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine from the US, under the Covax facility, reached Dhaka on two flights - the first arriving at around 11:30pm Friday and the second one at around 8:40am Saturday.
On the other hand, two million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, which Bangladesh bought from China, arrived at Dhaka airport on two more flights.
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen and Health Minister Zahid Maleque, along with other relevant officials, received the vaccine doses on behalf of the government on Friday night. The ministers received the first consignment of 1.3 million out of 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine from US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl Miller at the airport on Friday night, reports BSS.
About an hour later, they also received the first consignment of the Sinopharm vaccines, brought in by an aircraft of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, from Chinese officials at the airport. Earlier, Bangladesh received 1.1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China as a gift on two occasions in May and June.
The consignments have arrived at a time when Bangladesh has been desperately looking for Covid-19 vaccines to inoculate huge numbers of people. On Thursday, the foreign minister expressed his optimism that the shortage of vaccines would be over soon as Dhaka was expecting a steady supply of vaccines from different sources.
On the same day, the health minister in a video message had said that the government would resume its regular vaccination drive after getting these 4.5 million doses of vaccines. Dhaka had urged Washington to send two million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine immediately after knowing that the US had 60 to 80 million shots in stock.
At the same time, Bangladesh was negotiating with China and Russia to bring adequate vaccines here as soon as possible. The foreign minister had earlier said the government was hoping to make a formal announcement soon on the co-production of Covid-19 vaccines here.
The health ministry has been negotiating the purchase of 15 million doses of the Chinese vaccine and import of five million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia, according to official sources. On January 21, Bangladesh received the first Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine consignment, with India sending 20 million doses as a gift. The country got another 1.2 million doses of the vaccine on March 26.
Bangladesh has so far received 12 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum Institute of India (SII). The country has so far approved eight Covid-19 vaccines -- including Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Sinovac, Sputnik V and Sinopharm -- for use in its fight against the disease that has killed over 14,700 people.
Status of the vaccination campaign
On Saturday, 1,051 people received their second dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. Among them, 672 are men and 379 women. A total of 4,290,964 people have now received both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, while 10,110,979 have received first doses.
Meanwhile, 942 people, of whom 559 are men and 342 women, received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Saturday. The total number of people to have received Pfizer shots stood at 1,866, including 1,143 men and 723 women.
For the Sinopharm vaccine, as many as 7,007 people received their first dose on Saturday, including 3,786 men and 3,221 women. The total number of people who have received both doses of the Sinopharm vaccine stood at 2,237 (1,544 men and 693 women), and one dose at 71,008 (31,665 men and 39,434 women).
Most people were vaccinated in Dhaka division. The government had suspended the vaccination program on April 25, just a day after India stopped exporting the vaccine due to the record-breaking surge in cases and deaths there.
