Govt won’t supply vaccine to pvt hospitals

The government will not provide Covid-19 vaccines for the private healthcare sector, Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, said yesterday.

If any private healthcare organisation wants to import vaccines, the government will allow it, he said while addressing journalists at the health directorate.

"In that case, the government will set a price for vaccines [imported by the private healthcare sector]," he added.

Earlier on February 10, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that the government was taking steps to engage the private healthcare sector in the mass Covid-19 vaccination campaign.

The minister made the announcement at a seminar in Dhaka where leaders of the private healthcare sector demanded that the government involve privately owned hospitals in the immunisation campaign.

Prof Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam. File photo

Pointing to this, Prof ABM Khurshid Alam said, "There has been a change on the primary discussion on giving vaccines to the private sector. Now, they have been encouraged to import vaccines [themselves]."

The health directorate chief, meanwhile, said they have asked for data of the teachers to be vaccinated from the ministry of education.

"Teachers will be inoculated as early as possible," he said, adding, "The government is planning to inoculate teachers first and then students. We already have included the teacher category in the online registration process."

Starting from February 7, the government has been inoculating frontline workers of different sectors and people aged 40 and above as priority basis in the first month.

Although the teachers were not primarily included in the priority list, the government in principle decided to include them after students of different universities demonstrated demanding reopening their institutions recently.

Against this backdrop, the government announced the universities and equivalent institutions will be reopened from May 17.

On Saturday, the government decided to reopen all primary, secondary and higher secondary educational institutions on March 30.

Meanwhile, the total number of people vaccinated rose to 32,26,825 as new 1,16,300 people were vaccinated countrywide yesterday.

Of those who were vaccinated yesterday, 21 reported side-effects.

As of 5:30pm yesterday, a total 44,13,892 people have registered for vaccines.

Meanwhile, the positivity rate of Covid-19 rose again yesterday.

Against a total of 13,748 tests conducted yesterday, the positivity rate was 4.31 percent, which was 2.87 percent the day before.

Eight more people died from Covid-19 in 24-hours ending at 8:00am yesterday, said another press release from the DGHS.

With the latest fatalities, the total number of deaths has reached 8,416. The death rate was 1.54 percent.

At least 585 new infections were recorded in the same 24-hour period, taking the total number of infected people in the country to 5,46,801.

At least 873 Covid-19 patients have recovered during the same period. The total number of recoveries now stands at 4,97,797 and the recovery rate at 90.98 percent.

Among the eight deceased, four were males.

Two of the dead were aged between 41 and 50, three between 51 and 60 and three were above 60 years, said the DGHS release.