Asraful Islam Asraf
DHAKA : Some 54 lakh more vaccine doses will arrive in Bangladesh by August 15 as the government has geared up its vaccination campaign, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Monday.

“Some 34 lakh doses of vaccine under Covax facility will arrive between August 9-10 to August 15 in addition to 10 lakh doses, purchased from China. Another 10 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine will arrive as a gift,” he said.

The health minister revealed the information while talking to reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting at the Secretariat. This will help the country make the ongoing vaccination drive more dynamic, he said, adding, “We’ve started a successful vaccination drive that actually began on August 7.”
Zahid Maleque said rural people are taking jabs in a festive mood as long queues are seen during vaccination. “We’ve planned to vaccinate 600 people in each union but people are overcrowding the vaccine centres,” he added.

Minister Maleque said, “Those who’ve failed to take shots in their arms got that the following day. Besides, the remote areas have also been brought under immunisation drive as they’re interested in taking shots now.”

He said the vaccination drive in municipality areas will continue alongside the routine vaccination 30 lakh people have been brought under the mega vaccination process. “We’ve got approval to procure 6 crore more doses of vaccine from China.”

As the ruthless Delta variant of Covid-19 keeps spreading like wildfire, Bangladesh on Saturday kicked off another phase of its mass vaccination drive aimed at inoculating 35 lakh people in six days.

Covid jabs will be administered simultaneously in 4,600 unions, 1,054 municipality areas and 433 wards of the city corporations, Director General of Health Services Dr ABM Khurshid Alam told the media on Friday.