Registration for Vaccine: Passport, birth certificate to be allowed
The government will accept two more documents -- birth certificate and passport -- of the people alongside the National Identity (NID) card for Covid-19 vaccination registration, health officials said.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque will announce details on this on August 6, a day before the launch of the inoculation campaign at the union level.
This will ease the registration of those who have not been able to take vaccines yet as the NID card has so far been used as the only identification document for vaccination registration.
On Tuesday, the government had decided that anyone eligible for Covid vaccine will get the shot after producing his/her NID card at the vaccination centres.
Speaking to The Daily Star yesterday, DGHS Director General Prof ABM Khurshid Alam said, "We are thinking of alternatives to the NID card to give vaccines. The alternatives may be the birth certificate or passport. Our team is preparing a draft in this regard. The health minister will announce everything on August 6."
The government in phases has lowered the vaccination cut-off age to 25 for all citizens. However, the age limit for the family members of the Covid-19 frontliners is 18.
The county has been seeing a surge in Covid deaths and infections for the last two months.
To save lives and curb the infections, the government has planned to launch a massive countrywide vaccination campaign from August 7.
For this, the government has decided to set up around 14,000 vaccination centres in as many wards of different unions across the country.
Currently, the vaccination programme is being run through 1,005 points across the country.
Meanwhile, health officials said those who have registered but have not received confirmation SMS will receive it in phases.
"After completing the registration, many people are waiting in the queue in each vaccination centre. Besides, we are administering vaccines to the migrant workers and others in emergency need on a priority basis. This is the reason for the delay. Everyone will get vaccine jabs gradually," a health official said wishing not to be named.
The government has so far received more than 2.39 crore vaccine doses from different sources, including 781,320 jabs of AstraZeneca vaccine from Japan yesterday.
As of yesterday, a total of 1,49,83990 people registered for vaccination. A total of 88,06,075 people have got the first jab and 43,39,386 people received the second shot, according to data of the Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
When the inoculation drive began on February 7, health officials had said they were capable of administering 3.60 lakh jabs a day. But they have not been able to do so.
The drive revolved mainly around AstraZeneca vaccine supplied by India's Serum Institute, the largest vaccine producer in the world. It came to a grinding halt after New Delhi suspended vaccine export in the last week of April amid a massive surge in Covid infections in that country.
Bangladesh suspended administering the first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine on April 26.
Vaccination of the first jab of Covid vaccines resumed in the country on a limited scale last month following the arrival of Sinopharm and Pfizer vaccines.
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