Covid Vaccination: 15m to get jabs in next 10-15 days

As many as 15 million people will be given Covid-19 vaccines within the next 10-15 days, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said yesterday.

He said this while speaking as the chief guest at an event, organised by the Bangladesh Society of Medicine, in Dhaka for a felicitations programme for new intern doctors.

"We will undertake 2-3 programmes within next 10-15 days and will administer 1.5 crore doses of vaccines. Meanwhile we have been continuing the vaccination campaign in schools and community clinics."

He said nine crore vaccine doses have already been administered so far, making up around 40 percent of the target to inoculate 80 percent of the population.

The government aims to vaccinate around 14 crore people.

"The rush for taking vaccines, however, has declined nowadays," the minister said.

Urging people to get the jabs, Maleque said, "Covid-19 is an unpredictable disease. It can be good one day, and bad the next. Recently, we have been seeing the Covid-19 situation turning worse, after it was good for a while, in Europe."

To tackle any surge in transmission in the future, he urged doctors to remain prepared.

"We want to keep our country in a good condition [in terms of the pandemic situation]. So, you [doctors] have to always be prepared," he said, adding that his ministry is also working for to ensure it.

Maleque further said the process of appointing of 4,000 new doctors and 8,000 new nurses is underway.

"But we need more human resources for our enormous healthcare sector," he said, adding, "We have taken up a programme to appoint up to 20,000 healthcare assistants and medical technologists."

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Health Services reported two Covid-19 deaths and 264 new cases in the past 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday, with a positivity rate of 1.42 percent.