Weeklong booster dose campaign targeting to vaccinate 1.42cr kicks off

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

Health Minister Zahid Maleque inaugurated the campaign, which will continue till 10 June, at Manikganj Col Malek Medical College Hospital. 

"Over one crore people will get the booster dose in the next one week. There is no shortage of vaccines in the country," said the minister, adding that if we take booster doses, we will be more protected.

He called upon the citizens entitled to take booster doses to do so as soon as possible.

Under the campaign, the Directorate General of Health Services (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. 

However, the turnout of the recipients was low at the vaccination centres on the first day of the campaign.

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. 

The DGHS started providing booster doses on 19 December last year. 

The DGHS data shows that 1.55 crore people have taken the booster dose till Friday. Some 12.87 crore people have received the first dose while 11.77 crores received the second dose. At present, 1.5 lakh people are vaccinated daily on average.

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.