The government will vaccinate 10 million people against Covid-19 in a week between August 7 and August 14 in a festive environment, Health Minister Zahid Maleque.
The weeklong vaccination festival will be held everywhere from the union and ward levels to the capital Dhaka, he said on Sunday.
The health minister was inaugurating the first year MBBS class of 2020-21 at BCPS Auditorium in Mohakhali.
The government started the nationwide vaccination in February with the age limit of 40 years. Later it was cut to 25 years.
The Health Minister earlier announced that they would bring all above 18 years under the vaccine coverage gradually.
Besides, to bring more people under the vaccination programme, the government also decided to launch the campaign from August 7.
During the campaign, people will be able to walk-in with the NID card in the vaccine point close to their areas and take the jab.
The health ministry’s EPI that oversees that vaccination programme will set up the inoculation points in different areas in the city and villages.
Bangladesh started the nationwide vaccination against the pandemic coronavirus with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine bought from the Serum Institute of India. By now, the government got vaccines from other sources such as Sinopharm, Moderna and Pfizer.
The Health Minister told journalists that they have secured a pledge of getting 210 million doses of vaccine by next year.
Of them, 30 million would come from China, 30 million from Oxford/ AstraZeneca, 70 million under the COVAX facility, 10 million from Russia and 70 million from Johnson and Johnson.
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The Johnson and Johnson vaccine would come by the second quarter of the next year, he had said, adding that the target is to vaccinate 80 percent of the population by 2022.
In the campaign, the health minister said, older people will get the priority to get the shots.
Currently, Bangladesh has 12,189,000 doses of vaccine as the health minister said on Saturday.
Another 3.4 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine will arrive in the first or second week of August. Besides, more AstraZeneca vaccines will arrive and 6 million doses of Pfizer will be available in August.
