Interest among the people of Bangladesh for vaccination against Covid-19 is growing day by day, setting aside fears of side effects.
Not only that, a festive atmosphere is prevailing among the people as well all over the country centring the vaccination, and also for registration to get vaccinated.
Discussion over the vaccination and registration is on almost everywhere, including at offices, courts and even tea stalls.
People are seen making themselves public through social media as soon as they are registered for the vaccine or getting vaccinated. Even those who are waiting to be vaccinated are telling it to others.
Almost all the vaccination centres in the capital as well as across the country now remain crowded with people interested to be vaccinated.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her younger sister Sheikh Rehana, almost all the ministers, secretaries of different ministers, justices, high-officials of various departments have also been vaccinated alongside people of different classes and professions.
Experts said, public interest in getting vaccinated is increasing day by day as there is almost no side effect in the vaccination. Therefore, people are now more willing to get vaccinated and they are also getting registered for vaccination.
Besides, they said, people are now interested more in taking the vaccine as the Prime Minister and other important personalities have also been vaccinated.
In addition, as a result of vaccination, there are benefits to travel to different countries, where a corona vaccination certificate was previously required.
Dr. Ayesha Akhter, in-charge of a vaccination center located at 250-bed TB hospital in capital's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, said “Since there is no such incident of side-effect, interest for vaccination is increasing day by day among the people. Many are crowding even after the scheduled time.
According to the Department of Health, so far over 38 lakh people of the country already have been vaccinated with the first dose while over 51 lakh people already registered themselves for vaccination.
Health Minister, Zahid Malek said the interest of mass people in the corona vaccine shows that the government's plan to implement the corona vaccination is being implemented successfully.
Bangladesh has been praised not only in the country but also abroad for providing vaccinations across the country in the last one month.
“While many of the countries are facing difficulties in vaccinating their people, Bangladesh is being praised all over the world for its leading role and successes in the vaccination drives as well”, said the Health Minister.
He said that adequate vaccines have been distributed to all the 1,006 vaccination booths across the country. At present vaccination is being run at the upazila level. It will be taken to the union level very soon.
“The government has a target to vaccinate a total of four crore people of the country by next July with the help of the World Health Organisation (WHO)), said the Health Minister.
Officials at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said Bangladesh’s coronavirus caseload rose to 5,51,175 till Monday and 8,476 of them died of the virus. Meanwhile, 5,04,120 of the patients (91.46 percent) have already recovered.
Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and the first death on March 18 last year.
Besides, authorities have so far tested 41,63,163 samples.
On the other hand, Bangladesh launched its nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive on February 7. The government is providing the vaccine for free. It signed an agreement with the Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd for 30 million doses. Serum will provide five million doses every month between January and June.
People who are 40 or above can register for getting vaccinated at surokkha.gov.bd as the on-spot registration system has been revoked.
Moreover, the death toll from Covid-19 in the world reached 25,93,073 as of Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The total case count and death toll now stand at 11,68,22,839 as per the latest data released by JHU early Sunday.