20 percent people to be vaccinated by December: Maleque

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said that 20 percent people will be vaccinated by December this year under COVAX facilities. 

“As per total population of Bangladesh, we will get COVID-19 vaccines for 40 percent population of the country under COVAX facilities. WHO Chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus agreed to send coronavirus jabs to Bangladesh for our 40 percent people in phases,” he said.

The comments came when the health minister met with Director General (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Geneva, Switzerland on October 1, an official release said today.

During the meeting, the WHO DG lauded Bangladesh’s success to contain the spread of COVID-19 and he assured that WHO will extend all possible supports to Bangladesh to fight the disease, Maleque added. 

“The WHO will provide technical support to Bangladesh for manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines,” he said. 

Referring to the success of Bangladesh to inoculate eligible population, the health minister said, “Bangladesh held a massive vaccination campaign on September 28 to bring more people under inoculation coverage. On September 28, over 80 lakh people were vaccinated across the country.”

According to the health ministry, the government has decided to purchase 16.5 crore more COVID-19 vaccines from China and other countries to expedite the countrywide vaccination campaign.

Bangladesh set a target to vaccinate the country’s 80 percent population by 2022 under an accelerated inoculation campaign, expecting receipt of required COVID-19 jabs within the estimated timeline, it added.

Bangladesh has so far approved eight COVID-19 vaccines to control the deadly disease. 

The approved COVID-19 vaccines are from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CoronaVac, Pfizer, Covishield, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.

ARR