Bangladesh to launch COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Jan 27

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to launch the COVID 19 vaccination campaign in the country virtually from her residence on January 27.

The Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr. Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, was quoted by the official news agency BSS that the programme will be launched with the administration of the vaccine to a nurse at Kurmitola General Hospital in Dhaka.

500-600 health professionals of five hospitals of Dhaka will be given the vaccine on the inaugural day.

After observing them for a week, the next round of listed people as per the priority list worked out by the government will be taken up for vaccination.

Bangladesh received its first batch of 2 million doses of COVID 19 vaccine gift from India on Thursday. The country is set to get 30 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines soon.

It is part of a tripartite memorandum agreement on December 13 among the Bangladesh government, Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd (BPL) and the Serum Institute of India (SII).

The first consignment of 5 million doses of the COVID 19 vaccine from the SII is expected to arrive in a few days.

Government of Bangladesh has made preparations to start the vaccination process from the first week of February.

In the meanwhile, the death toll due to Coronavirus in Bangladesh crossed 8000 with 22 deaths reported on Saturday.

According to the latest figures released by the DGHS as on Saturday, the death toll in Bangladesh has reached 8003 while the total number of infections has gone up to 5.31 lakh. The recovery rate in the country now stands at 89.57 percent.