Inoculating Children: No plan drawn up yet

The health directorate yesterday said there is no plan to inoculate children under 18 against Covid-19.

The statement came a day after Health Minister Zahid Maleque said the government was planning to inoculate children as young as 12.

"We have no knowledge of the plan to vaccinate students below 18 years right now. Since the government is thinking about it, we will be able to inform you once any plan is finalised," said Md Shamsul Haque, secretary general of Covid-19 Vaccine Management Taskforce Committee of the health directorate, at an online briefing yesterday.

However, the National Immunization Advisory Group (NITAG) in a meeting last week recommended the health ministry not to offer Covid-19 vaccines to children, a member of the group told The Daily Star.

The NITAG makes recommendations to the government on issues involving vaccination.

"We clearly conveyed the message that the government should not vaccinate children right now," the NITAG member said, referring to issues like vaccine shortage and lack of scientific evidence in favour of such a move.

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) on August 20 announced that students as young as 18 could register for the vaccine. The minimum age requirement is 25 for others.

At yesterday's briefing, Shamsul said 1.93 lakh people were waiting for their shots after registering for vaccination.

"We believe that vaccinating these people is our number one priority. We are trying to increase the number of vaccination centers and prepare human resources accordingly," he said.

SPECIAL CAMPAIGN FOR SECOND DOSE FROM TOMORROW

Shamsul said the mass vaccination campaign will be held from September 7-12.

"Those who got the first shot between August 7 and 12, will receive the second one from the same centres," Shamsul Alam said.

From August 7-12, around 34 lakh people got the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine in a special campaign run through around 14,000 vaccination centres across the country.

The campaign didn't continue mostly because of shortage of vaccine doses.

The government currently has around 1.75 crore jabs in stock and is expecting another 12 crore doses to arrive by December.

70 DEAD, 2,430 NEW CASES

Officials yesterday reported 2,430 new cases of Covid-19 and 70 deaths from the disease, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 15,14,456 and the deaths to 25,563.

The new cases were detected after testing 25,163 individuals. The positivity rate was 9.66 percent.

Of the deceased, 40 were male and 30 female.