vaccination campaign to start 7 September

News Desk

The second dose of the Covid-19 walk-in vaccination campaign will begin on 7 September, said Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Professor Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam.

“Administering the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine to those who were inoculated during the campaign won’t be a problem as more vaccines will be available by then,” he said during an event at the Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD) auditorium today.

Asked whether the second dose could be received without SMS, the DGHS director general said that a meeting on the issue will be held today and the detailed information will be provided afterwards in a DGHS press release.

“We conducted this vaccination campaign as a pilot programme to gauge our abilities whether we are able to pull off an inoculation drive of this volume,” he said further adding that the campaign has been a success excluding some isolated incidents.

Hoping that everyone who has been vaccinated with the first dose will get a second dose, Dr ABM Khurshid Alam said, “We have 3.5 million shots in hand and another 5 million Sinopharm vaccines will arrive on 30 August, which will be enough to vaccinate them all.”

Earlier, the government rolled out the countrywide Covid vaccination drive on 7 August to bring the people at the union level under the immunisation coverage in a short time.

Later on 23 August, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said the country is unlikely to go for any mass immunisation drive and on-spot vaccine registration in the upcoming months.

However, the regular vaccination will only continue with prior online registration.

At present, around 1.66 crore citizens are on the second shot waiting list, while 1.5 crore people after online registration are yet to get the first shot.