ZCZC
BSS-36
COVID-19-VACCNINATION-AGE-GROUP
People aged over 40 to get COVID-19 vaccines: Maleque
DHAKA, Feb 8, 2021 (BSS) – People aged 40 years and above now can get
registered to receive COVID-19 vaccines, said Health and Family Welfare
Minister Zahid Maleque today.
“Now people aged 40 years and above will be able to get registered to
receive COVID-19 vaccines, while as the frontline fighters, the health
officials of both private and public hospitals will get priority in
vaccination,” he said.
To this end, decisions were taken in line with the instruction of the
cabinet meeting today with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
According to earlier decision of the government, people aged 55 years and
above were only eligible for taking vaccines but the decision has been
revised a day after launching of the countrywide COVID-19 vaccination
campaign yesterday.
“The health minister has already directed the authorities concerned to
bring commoners aged 40 years and above under coronavirus inoculation
coverage,” senior information officer of the ministry Maidul Islam told BSS.
Additional Director General of Directorate General of Health Services
(DGHS) Prof Nasima Sultana said: “Like healthcare professionals, doctors,
nurses of both public and private hospitals will now be given priority in
vaccination.”
But, she said, medical professionals and other staff of private hospitals
would receive vaccines from designated public hospitals.
“We consider medical professionals of both public and private hospitals as
front liners….so they (healthcare professionals of public and private
hospitals) will be vaccinated giving equal importance,” she added.
Prof Nasima said the vaccination campaign is underway at 50 hospitals in
Dhaka city and 1,005 hospitals outside the capital, while the immunisation
began at 8 am and will continue till 2.30 pm.
But some hospitals will continue the vaccination programme throughout the
day, she said.
The inoculation would be administered among people at public hospitals up
to upazila level while over four lakh people so far got registered to receive
vaccines, Prof Nasima added.
The frontline workers are to get the vaccines on priority basis in line
with a list of officials, she said, adding they included 452,027 government
healthcare professionals and employees and approved 600,000 private
healthcare professionals.
Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Dr
Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam said healthcare professionals including
doctors, nurses and other staff of government-run hospitals were only allowed
to be vaccinated on the first day of countrywide COVID-19 vaccination
campaign.
Medical professionals and other employees of both public and private
hospitals are allowed to receive vaccines from today (Monday), he added.
President of Bangladesh Private Medical College Hospital Mubin Khan said
nearly one lakh medical professionals and employees of private hospitals, who
are member of the association are working in the health sector across the
country. “The figure of the medical professionals and other staff will be
higher as many hospitals are not member of our association,” he added.
Apart from the public hospitals, private hospitals have also been working
to provide healthcare service to the COVID-19 patients, he said, adding that
private hospitals have provided significant facilities for containing the
coronavirus pandemic.
“So, medical professionals of private-run hospitals deserve vaccination
facilities as priority group like public hospitals,” Mubin added.
By now, Bangladesh received five million doses of expected 30 million
doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured by India’s Serum Institute
apart from two more million jabs received as gift from the neighboring
country.
Bangladesh eventually is expected to get 68 million or 6.80 crore vaccines
for 20 percent of its population or 3.40 crore people from the WHO, COVAX
facility.
Officials said after initial lab testing, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines
were dispatched across the country to be preserved at Expanded Programme on
Immunisation (EPI) stores.
BSS/ASG/MMR/MRI/ARS/1905 hrs