Vaccination starts in first week of Feb

Covid-19 vaccination would start from the first week of February.

The government yesterday said the first instalment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine from Serum Institute of India (SII) would arrive by January 25.

For getting vaccinated, people would have to register with an app that would be opened to them on January 26, said officials of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

"Beximco told us that the first consignment of Serum vaccines will reach the country between January 21 and 25," Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, Director General of the DGHS said in a briefing yesterday afternoon at his office.

He said a total of 50 lakh doses will be administered among 25 lakh people, two doses per person.

The DG, meanwhile, said they were exploring the minus 70-degree storage capacity required for the Pfizer vaccine in the country.

"We have been asked [by COVAX] to inform whether we agree [to take the Pfizer vaccines] or not by January 18. We agreed in principle. We will reply within days. Now we are exploring our storage capacity," Prof Khurshid said.

At the event, Shamsul Haque Mridha, member secretary of the National Covid-19 Vaccination Plan, also the director of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) of the DGHS shared the "Covid-19 Vaccination Plan" with journalists.

"We will first administer the vaccine on a few willingly enlisted people -- likely in medical college hospitals -- to observe [the effects]. For this, we have a seven-day plan. We will then start working on the field," Shamsul said, adding, "This a primary plan … it will be finalised … we have a committee for this."

STORAGE

According to the vaccination plan, there are Walk-In Cold Room (WIC) or Ice Lined Refrigerator (ILR) vaccine storage facilities in 64 districts. At least 483 upazilas have ILRs under the EPI network.

Each WIC store can accommodate up to 4.25 lakh vials of vaccine while an ILR can store 7,100 vials.

Cold boxes will be needed with 900 vials capacity and vaccine carriers with 80 vials capacity.

"We are working to set up 14 WICs in Dhaka and 17 ILRs in different districts," Shamsul said, adding, "Steps have been taken to rent cold storages from the BADC [Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation] and other sources to increase national level storage capacity."

As per the contract, Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd will deliver the three crore doses to the district level EPI storages from SII in six phases.

"We will be able to accommodate these vaccines smoothly," Shamsul added.

VACCINATION TEAM

A total of 7,344 vaccination teams would work to implement the vaccination programme. Each team will have two vaccine injectors and four volunteers.

Training and orientation of the workers are underway and will be completed by January 27 as per the plan.

The number of vaccination centres is yet to be decided.

Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora, additional director general (Planning) of the DGHS, said, "We will fix the number of centres in any area based on the number of registered vaccine recipients."

The centres would be set up in each Union Parishad, Upazila Health Complex, district hospitals, government and private medical college hospitals, specialised hospitals, Police and BGB hospitals, and CMH, and chest disease hospitals.

To get vaccinated, people have to collect vaccination cards via digital registration online.

For this, one has to input personal information including the data from their NID card to register using an app which would be available soon.

Replying to a question on how long it will take for each registration, she said, "We have examined that each registration will require 5-10 minutes to complete. Actually, it depends on the user's competence."

Prof Khurshid Alam added, "We know each house in the country has at least one competent member for this. Besides, there are alternatives everywhere."

After registration, the date and related information for the first dose of vaccination will be sent to the given mobile number via text.

Each person will have to fill up and sign a vaccine receiving agreement before taking both the shots.

The second dose would be administered 8-12 weeks after the first shot.

VACCINE SAFETY

Officials said there would be primary medical support in each vaccination centre to tackle any adverse effects of the shots.

They said there was a surveillance committee under the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) which was working to prepare the "Pharmacovigilance and Adverse Events Following Immunization Protocol".

"The side effects are minimal. Vaccine recipients may feel mild to moderate dizziness or fever or both. Except this, one can develop anaphylaxis resulting in breathing difficulty and fever," Mizanur Rahman, director of Management Information System at the DGHS said in the programme.