First Month’s Mass Inoculation Plan: 51pc of target achieved so far

The government is racing against time to achieve the lofty target of inoculating 70 lakh people in the first month of its Covid vaccination campaign.

As of Thursday, 35.81 lakh people got their first jab of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. This means the government has so far achieved 51.15 percent of the target for the first month ending this week.

The low point of the inoculation campaign was lower participation of women compared to men. Of the vaccine recipients, 12,87,100 are women -- a little more than half the number of the men who got inoculated.

When it comes to registration for vaccination, a total of 47,70,953 people have signed up on surokkha.gov.bd -- 65 percent of the government target for the first month.

In the global context, Bangladesh has fared well in terms of vaccination and management. It now holds the 18th position with 3.58 million people inoculated till Thursday.

The US tops the chart with 82.57 million people inoculated. The UK secured the second position (21.95 million) and India the third position (18.01 million).

On the list of the number of vaccine doses administered per 100 people in a country, Bangladesh secured the 22th spot with 2.17 percent of its population immunized. Israel tops the list (98.85 percent) followed by the United Arab Emirates (62.73 percent).

As per the National Vaccine Deployment Plan, 70 lakh people will be inoculated in the first month of the mass vaccination campaign that began on February 7.

Initially, 59.85 lakh vaccine shots were dispatched to 64 districts, shows data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

According to the division-wise distribution list, Khulna has emerged as the top performer among the eight divisions by inoculating 77.45 percent of the target population of 588,000.

On the other hand, Mymensingh is at the bottom of the list, achieving only 30 percent of its target population of 504,000.

Dhaka holds the second position with inoculation of 70.71 percent of its target population of 15,72,600, followed by Chattogram with 61.24 percent of the target population of 12,56,000 inoculated.

However, the district-wise analysis put Dhaka at the top with inoculation of 614,805 people. As of yesterday, 94.88 percent of the allocated 6.48 lakh doses were administered in the district.

The majority of the doses -- 543,616 -- were administered at 47 vaccination centres in the capital.

Chattogram district, which got an allocation of 4.56 lakh vaccine doses, holds the second position with 274,567 people vaccinated as of yesterday, followed by Khulna, Rajshahi and Gazipur.

Meherpur vaccinated 11,845 people -- the lowest among the 64 districts. Itgot an allocation of 12,000 doses against a population of around seven lakh.

Assessing the trend of vaccination across the country, experts say the people living in urban areas are more responsive than those in rural areas.

They advocated setting up more vaccination centres in remote areas and taking online registration support to people's doorstep to expedite the vaccination campaign.

Prof Ridwanur Rahman, an infectious disease specialist, said, "There are multiple reasons behind the slow pace of vaccination. People are seeing the registration process as a burden.

"Another key reason is inadequate number of vaccination centres. There is a need for providing door-to-door registration service in addition to setting up of vaccination centres in remote areas," he told this newspaper recently.

Echoing his view, Dr Mushtuq Hussain, member-secretary of the Publicity and Communication Sub-Committee for Covid-19 vaccination campaign, said, "There is a need for expansion of vaccination centres in the coming days."

Asked whether there is any weakness in the government's publicity campaign, he said many people still don't know that they can get registration services at a digital centre set up by the Local Government Division in every union."

Contacted, Dr Shamsul Haque, member-secretary of the Committee for the National Covid-19 Vaccination Campaign at the DGHS, said they allocated vaccine doses, considering the population of each district.

"Some districts are moving fast to achieve the target while some are not. We are revising the vaccine allocations for the districts based on their success in achieving the inoculation target," he noted.

Initially, DGHS officials said the campaign would continue at more than a thousand vaccination centres across the country for 12 working days in the first month.

"We are not rigid with the timeline. We may need more time to reach the target for the first month. We are going to inoculate the teachers and students… Hopefully, the pace of vaccination will be faster," said Shamsul.

Bangladesh started the vaccination campaign with 70 lakh doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in hand. In January, the government received the first consignment of 50 lakh of the three crore doses of Oxford vaccine it purchased from the Serum Institute of India (SII). 

Besides, Bangladesh got 20 lakh doses of Oxford vaccine from the Indian government as gift the same month. It also received 20 lakh doses of Oxford vaccine from SII on February 23.

The country is also expected to get 1.09 crore Oxford vaccine doses from Covax for free in different phases till May.

The government set a goal of inoculating 70 lakh people in the first month of the campaign after revising the target twice.