Police charge baton at Savar vaccination centre following overcrowding, chaos
For the past few days, the announcement of ending the first dose of vaccination after February 26 has caused crowds of people coming to the Health Management Institute Centre in Savar. Today, the picture became grim.
There has been an incident of charging baton to manage the crowd coming to the centre to get vaccinated. Some were injured during the incident.
On February 15, the Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Dr ABM Khurshid Alam said at a virtual press conference that a special Covid-19 vaccination campaign to administer jabs to "one crore people in a day" will be carried out across the country on February 26. Then the second dose and booster dose campaigns will be further accelerated, he added.
Those concerned said that the crowd has been increasing at the vaccination centre in Savar since the announcement. Usually, a maximum of 4,000-5,000 people were vaccinated daily at the centre. Yesterday, more than 18,000 people were vaccinated.
Eyewitnesses said a rush of people coming to the centre to get vaccinated was noticed since early morning today. At the time, when the chaos started, the law enforcers first requested everyone to stay calm. Later, the police resorted to charging baton to control the situation.
Rekha Akhter, a garment factory worker present at the vaccination centre at 12 pm, said, "I came to the vaccination centre around 5:00am and saw that many people had come before me. I haven't been vaccinated yet. We are suffering greatly. Many people are falling ill after standing in the sun for a long time."
According to Rekha, they would not have had to suffer if separate vaccination facilities were set up at each garment factory.
Sayemul Huda, health and family planning officer of Savar upazila, told The Daily Star, "Hundreds of volunteers and health workers are working at the centre today due to the huge crowd. We are struggling to handle the crowd. A total 18,000 people were vaccinated yesterday. Today it will be even more."
Sayemul Huda further said, "All those who have come here today will be vaccinated. There are enough vaccines. There are also trained staff. Now if the discipline can be maintained, it will be possible to vaccinate everyone."
Earlier on Sunday, 12,000 people were vaccinated at the centre while many had to go back without getting vaccine. A lot of people returned to get the jab yesterday.
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