12.94 lakh people receive booster dose on 1st day of campaign 

Some 12.94 lakh people have been administered booster doses against Covid-19 on Saturday, the first day of government's weeklong campaign.

Of the vaccinated people, 6.38 lakh are female and 5.71 lakh are male, according to the Directorate General for Health Services (DGHS).

So far 1.67 crore people have received booster doses since the government started providing booster doses on 19 December last year.

The first-ever weeklong campaign for providing booster doses against Covid-19 began Saturday with a target to cover about 1.42 crore people.

Under the campaign, the DGHS will provide booster doses to people aged 18 years and above who have passed four months after taking the second dose of Covid vaccines.

Earlier, the DGHS had conducted special campaigns in phases to provide the first and second doses of vaccines. But the campaign for a booster dose is being conducted for the first time.   

The DGHS decided on a special campaign for booster doses as people have become reluctant to take booster doses due to the decreased trend in Covid infection, the Ramadan and Eid festivals. 

During the campaign, people will be administered a booster dose at 16,181 vaccine centres across the country. Of these centres, 623 are permanent and 15,558 are makeshift centres.

The booster dose programme will be conducted for seven days at the permanent centres while the duration will be two days at the temporary ones. About 45,535 vaccination staff and volunteers have been deployed in the campaign.

The date for vaccination in the temporary centres will be announced locally through publicity and miking.

So far, Bangladesh has collected 30 crore doses of vaccines including the procured, gifted and aid. Unicef has delivered over 190 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Bangladesh through Covax.