First, second doses of Covid-19 vaccine won’t be given after Nov

First and second doses of Covid-19 vaccine will not be available after November, a health official said today (July 26, 2022).

"We will not have any stock of first and second dose of (Covid-19) vaccines after November...and then the inoculation campaign will be continued only for administering the booster doses," Dr Shamsul Haque, member secretary of Covid-19 Vaccine Management Taskforce, said in a meeting at the health directorate in Dhaka.

He said that around 33 lakh people have not taken their first doses and around 94 lakh are yet to take their second doses.

"We have vaccines in stock for them, but these vaccines will expire in November," he added.

So far, the government collected 30 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine, according to Shamsul, and of those, the government has 1.93 crore doses in stock.

The government has a target of inoculating around 13.29 crore people. Of them, 12.96 crore have taken the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

Shamsul urged those who are still unvaccinated to get jabbed immediately at their nearest vaccination centres.

Around 7.3 crore vaccine recipients are now eligible for booster doses. "We have enough stock of booster doses and have arrangements for importing more," Shamsul said.

Shamsul informed that vaccination for children – aged between five and 11 years – will begin in August.

"For this, the registration process has started. In total 4.20 crore children will get vaccines," he added.