No first dose of Moderna from tomorrow

The government has decided to suspend administering the first dose of Moderna Covid vaccine from tomorrow.

Issuing a circular yesterday, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) instructed those vaccination centres, which still have Moderna jabs in stock for first dose, to administer those soon and make preparations for administering the second one.

It also said the administering of the second dose of Sinopharm vaccine will start all over the country on August 14.

The Chinese vaccine jabs will be dispatched to different parts of the country on the basis of demand, mentioned the circular.

The government started inoculating people with Moderna vaccine in 12 city corporation areas last month.

Bangladesh received 25 lakh doses of Moderna vaccine under the Covax facility on July 2. Later, it received another 30 lakh doses.

So far, 19,08,549 doses of Moderna vaccine have been administered as first dose and 403 doses as second shot.

The country has also received 81 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine. Of those, 66,71,763 were administered as first dose and 1,72,322 shots as second dose.

The government launched a special vaccination campaign on August 7 to inoculate people in the rural areas to curb Covid deaths and infections. It had planned to administer one crore doses in six days but later revised down the target to 32 lakh.