Bangladesh on Saturday rolled out another phase of its mega Covid inoculation drive, aiming to cover a whopping 10 million people.

Across the country, including capital Dhaka, UNB found people thronging vaccine centres to get a shot in the arm.

“The special vaccination drive with an aim to inoculate one crore people in 24 hours started around 8.30am in districts across the country, including Dhaka,” said member secretary of Corona Vaccine Employment Committee of Health Services Division, Dr Shamsul Haque.

“There is no need for registration. People can just walk into the centres to get a shot of the Covid vaccine. People who are yet to get even their first shot should avail this opportunity. A vax card will be given to people, post-inoculation,” he added.

Our Natore Correspondent reports: The local administration started the vaccination campaign in 250 centres across the district to bring around three lakh people under the ambit of the programme.

Deputy Commissioner Shamim Ahmed visited a number of vaccination centres in the morning.

Our Cumilla Correspondent adds: The special inoculation drive began in 701 vaccination centres across Cumilla, with an ambitious target to cover three lakh people.

Some 6.55 million vaccine shots will be provided at different levels on Saturday — 4.14 million doses in 13,800 wards of the upazilas, 0.324 million doses in 1,068 wards of municipalities, and 2.0925 million shots in 465 wards across cities.

Besides, 3.5 million vaccine doses will be provided to special communities, including workers at factories, markets, restaurants, boats, launches and ships, brick kilns and other floating communities.

Since the inauguration of the mass inoculation drive in Bangladesh on February 7 last year, some 8,19,39,878 people have been fully vaccinated with two shots and  10,958,331 people received their first doses till Friday (February 25). Besides, 3,59,826 people have received booster doses.

“The government has taken the initiative to administer at least 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses on February 26 to achieve the target of vaccinating 90% of people in the country,” Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Malik said on February 17.

Covid situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh logged 11 more Covid-linked deaths with 1,406 fresh cases in 24 hours till Friday morning.

The daily positivity rate slightly declined to 5.48% from Thursday’s 5.53% after testing 25,702 samples during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

On Thursday, Bangladesh reported 10  Covid-linked deaths with 1,516 fresh cases.

The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 29,016 and the caseload to 19,41,057.