Online Registration for Vaccination: Plan revised as response poor
The government has decided to inoculate 35 lakh people, instead of 60 lakh, against Covid-19 in the first month of vaccination apparently due to a lukewarm response to online registration.
With the mass inoculation scheduled to start on Sunday, around 80,000 frontline workers from different professional groups and people over 55 completed the registration online till yesterday, according to official data.
It is only 2.29 percent of the revised target of 35 lakh doses.
Meanwhile, the country is expected to receive 12.8 million vaccine doses under the Covax programme by mid-2021, according to a statement.
The Covax programme for Covid-19 vaccines published its first distribution list yesterday, planning enough doses for dozens of countries, to immunise more than three percent of their populations by mid-year. It broke down for the first time how the programme's initial 337.2 million doses will be distributed, with first deliveries expected late this month, AFP reported.
Talking to The Daily Star, several healthcare officials said poor response to the mass inoculation campaign's online registration played the key role in revising the number of doses, but government officials said the plan was changed keeping in mind any unexpected delay in the arrival of the second consignment of shots from Serum Institute of India.
"We need two vaccine shots for each person. If we administer 60 lakh doses in the first month and there is a delay in receiving the second instalment, the whole vaccination process might witness a setback," Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, director general of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told The Daily Star yesterday.
"We do not want any hindrance in the process," he said.
Asked, the DG acknowledged that the online registration received a lukewarm response from the people, but said he was hopeful about people joining the campaign spontaneously.
He said the decision to inoculate 35 lakh people in the first month was made in a national vaccination committee meeting held at the Prime Minister's Office yesterday.
Meeting sources said all the deputy commissioners, UNOs, civil surgeons and other officials from across the country were asked to complete the registration process smoothly and quickly.
Khurshid Alam said there were some pitfalls in the online registration app, called Surokkha, adding that those issues would be addressed soon.
"Besides, community health care centres and union digital centres will start from tomorrow [today] to help people get registered," he added.
Since the Surokkha app was launched on January 27, the registration progressed slowly with some people complaining about difficulties in logging in.
Officials said although the pace of the registration was slow initially, more and more people were getting registered with each passing day.
Experts, however, said the government must intensify its efforts to encourage people to take the jabs if it wants to make the inoculation campaign a success.
Prof Md Sayedur Rahman, chairman at the BSMMU's pharmacology department, said the government has revised the plan sensing that it would not be able to get the vaccine to its targeted group.
He identified a number of reasons for the lukewarm response to the registration.
"Some people are not giving the vaccine due importance while some are not confident about its safety and effectiveness. The registration process is complex. Besides, trust deficit of people and different propaganda against the vaccine are also contributing to the poor response," Prof Sayedur Rahman said.
Referring to the country's birth control and Vitamin-A capsule campaigns which were fruitful in the past, he said a massive awareness campaign was the key to success.
"Those were very successful campaigns. But those were not for all spectra of life like this one. But the campaign for Covid-19 inoculation has so far not been that visible."
Dr Mushtuq Hussain, consultant of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) said, "The reason behind the poor registration rate is reluctance and hesitation among the people.
"It [the rate], hopefully, will increase after the vaccination kicks off," he said.
Dr Mushtuq recommended accelerating publicity about the vaccination campaign.
Meanwhile, keeping in mind the mass inoculation, the government sent vaccine doses to all districts of the country. From those district headquarters, shots have been transported to the upazila level.
It has also almost completed the necessary training for the vaccinators and volunteers, said officials concerned.
A total of 7,344 teams will be deployed across the country to carry out the campaign. There will be two vaccinators and four volunteers in each team that will inoculate around 150 people a day. The vaccinators will include nurses.
The government has already trained 14,688 vaccinators and 29,376 volunteers for administering the vaccine doses. There will be three vaccine centres in every upazila, officials said.
Bangladesh got 50 lakh doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum Institute of India (SII) on January 25. The government purchased three crore shots of the Oxford vaccine from SII. As per the contract, Bangladesh will get 50 lakh doses every month.
The country has also received 20 lakh doses of the Oxford vaccine as a gift from the Indian government.
Besides, The Covax programme, led by the World Health Organisation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has committed to give Bangladesh a total of 6.8 crore vaccine shots.
BANGLADESH TO GET 12.8M SHOTS FROM COVAX
The Covax list yesterday came amid concerns over whether lower-income countries will be left out of the immunisation race dominated by rich nations, a problem Covax was set up to resolve.
Some 145 countries are set to receive enough doses to immunise 3.3 percent of their population by mid-2021, reported AFP.
A statement said the initial distribution was in line with a target "to protect the most vulnerable groups such as health care workers" in the first half of the year.
Countries will receive doses in proportion to population size, with the most going to India (97.2 million), Pakistan (17.2 million), Nigeria (16 million), Indonesia (13.7 million), Bangladesh (12.8 million) and Brazil (10.6 million).
"This is fantastic. We can start vaccinating. It is coming in the next weeks," Ann Lindstrand, coordinator for a World Health Organisation immunisation programme, told a press conference.
Funding is covered through donations for the 92 lower- and lower-middle income economies involved, while for richer countries, buying in operates as a back-up insurance policy for their own vaccination programmes.
The distribution list includes 240 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, licensed to the Serum Institute of India (SII); 96 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine; and 1.2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only one so far to have received emergency use approval from the WHO. Evaluation is under way for the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine.
Both require two injected doses.
Wealthy self-financing countries were on the list in addition to lower-income nations, including South Korea (2.6 million doses), Canada (1.9 million) and New Zealand (250,000).
The list is non-binding and may change, the statement stressed, but would allow countries to plan for how many doses they will receive in the first rounds.
Longer term, Covax aims to secure enough vaccines for at least the most vulnerable 20 percent in participating countries by the end of 2021, added the statement.
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