First shipment of vaccine to arrive on Jan 25-26
The first consignment of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, produced by Serum Institute of India, will arrive in the country on January 25 or 26, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said yesterday.
He also said the government is likely to allow private companies to import and distribute Covid vaccines.
The minister was talking to journalists at his Secretariat office after a meeting with the cabinet secretary-led committee on vaccination campaign.
"We have been informed by Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd that the first consignment of vaccine will arrive in the country on January 25 or 26. We have made arrangements to transport those…
"We can keep more than seven lakh shots of vaccine in each district-level cold-chain storage. Besides, over two lakhs doses can be preserved in each upazila-level storage," the minister mentioned.
According to officials of the Directorate General of Health Services, there are Walk-In Cooler (WIC) or Ice Lined Refrigerator (ILR) vaccine storage facilities in all 64 districts. At least 483 upazilas across the country have ILRs under the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) network.
Each WIC store can accommodate up to 4.25 lakh vials of vaccine while 7,100 vials can be kept in an ILR.
Zahid said the government has already trained around 42,000 healthcare workers and volunteers across the country to start Covid vaccination from the first week of February. They will work in more than 7,000 teams.
Registration via a mobile phone application for getting vaccinated will start on January 26, according to DGHS officials.
About the application, the minister said, "The ICT ministry is creating the application and we are helping them."
The vaccine recipients will be informed about the date, time and place for vaccination via SMSon their cell phones.
About those to be vaccinated first, he said, "Frontline workers such as doctors, nurses, technologists, journalists, and members of the army and police will get priority.
"Today [yesterday], we have also decided to vaccinate people aged 50 and above step by step [on a priority basis]."
Besides, the foreign ministry is working for vaccination of the Bangladeshi immigrants abroad, he said.
The government has managed to secure three crore doses of vaccine from Serum and another 6.8 crore shots from global initiative called COVAX.
"We will be able to vaccinate five crore people with the doses we are bringing from … [Serum and] COVAX," said Zahid.
He also mentioned that the government will get some eight lakh doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines under the COVAX facility.
About vaccine import by private companies, the minister said the government will fix the price of vaccines and also determine where those will be supplied.
"The private sector will be able to supply vaccines … a guideline is being formulated in this regard. We will determine which hospitals and diagnostic centres will be able to use those for vaccinating people."
A vaccination monitoring cell has been opened at the DGHS. There will be another monitoring cell at the ministry, Zahid added.
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