Covax provided shots to be given to 20pc people by Dec
Under the Covax initiative, around 20 percent people of the country will be vaccinated by December this year, said Zahid Maleque, Health and Family Welfare Minister.
He also said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has agreed to send Covid-19 jabs in phases for 40 percent of the country's population.
"We will get vaccines for 40 percent people of the country under the Covax facilities very soon… Alongside that, we'll continue purchasing vaccines from other sources."
Zahid made the comments following a meeting with the Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general (DG) of the World Health Organization (WHO) Geneva, Switzerland, on October 1.
In the meeting, Tedros has also assured Bangladesh of providing technical support for the manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines, reads a press release.
"Besides, the WHO DG has assured us that they would give directives to expedite the issuance of accreditation to vaccine testing capacity of the National Control Laboratory of Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA)," the health minister said.
Referring to the success of Bangladesh in inoculating the eligible population, he said, "Bangladesh held a massive vaccination campaign on September 28 to bring more people under inoculation coverage. On that day, over 80 lakh people were vaccinated across the country."
Meanwhile, Tedros in a tweet praised the health minister for his efforts to suppress Covid-19 transmission among the people, including the marginalised communities.
"We discussed Bangladesh's good progress on vaccination and I reiterated WHO's support to achieve vaccine equity," he wrote.
According to the health ministry, the government has decided to purchase 16.5 crore more vaccines from China and other countries to expedite the countrywide vaccination campaign, says BSS.
Bangladesh set a target to vaccinate 80 percent of the country's population by 2022 under an accelerated inoculation campaign, it added.
Bangladesh has so far approved eight Covid-19 vaccines to control the deadly disease.
The approved vaccines are Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, CoronaVac, Pfizer, Covishield, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Sinopharm.
In the meantime, 24 people died from Covid-19 in the past 24-hours till 8:00am yesterday, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.
The total number of Covid-19 deaths in the country now stands at 27,555 and the death rate at 1.77 percent.
At least 589 new infections were recorded during the period after 17,283 samples were tested across the country, taking the total number of people infected to 15,57,347, added the DGHS press release.
The current positivity rate is 3.41 percent, while the total positivity rate is 15.93 percent.
At least 741 Covid-19 patients have recovered during the same period.
The total number of recoveries now stands at 15,17,642 and the recovery rate at 97.45 percent.
Among the 24 deceased, 15 were men and nine women. Of them, two were between 21-30, one between 31-40, six between 51-60 and 15 above 60 years old, added the release.
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