Covid-19 Inoculation Campaign: Alarm as vaccines found at pvt clinic
The recent incident of Covid-19 vaccines found in the black market raised questions about the grip the government has over its inoculation campaign.
The issue came to the fore on Wednesday night when police arrested a man in the capital's Dakkhinkhan area in connection with selling and administering Moderna shots at a private clinic.
This comes at a time when over one crore people, who have registered for getting the vaccine, are waiting for their first dose.
The government has not permitted any private facility to administer Covid-19 vaccines. All eligible people are supposed to get the shots from designated government facilities for free.
The reported vaccine embezzlement and the subsequent availability of those in the black market came after various irregularities marred the special vaccination campaign between August 7 and 12.
Experts say these, however, small in number, are causes for serious concern and put the entire campaign into question.
"It's a small incident but the consequences are huge. The entire vaccine chain management system needs to be re-examined to find the loopholes. Monitoring and supervision should be strengthened from the national level to field level," Be-Nazir Ahmed, National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups (NITAG), told The Daily Star yesterday.
Be-Nazir, also former director of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said a proper probe was needed. Mechanisms must be devised to prevent such incident since a huge number of people would be vaccinated in the coming days.
On Wednesday night, police, following a tip-off, arrested Bijoy Krishna Talukder, 37, for selling Moderna Covid-19 vaccines at Sheba Clinic in Chalabon area of Dakkhinkhan, Azizul Huq Mia, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Dakkhinkhan Police Station, told The Daily Star.
Bijoy was supposedly a volunteer in the special vaccination drive at a centre in Uttarkhan in the city.
The law enforces recovered an ampul of the vaccine from Bijoy's room and 20 packets that could hold 10 ampules each. Police later raided his home in Hazipara area and found another ampule in his refrigerator, said the official.
"During primary interrogation, we learnt that Bijoy was vaccinating people for Tk 500 per dose. We traced a couple who have taken the jabs from him. We are trying to get details," said Azizul.
Saiful Islam, deputy commissioner of Uttara division police, told this paper that Bijoy told police that he took the ampules from the vaccination centre.
"We have requested the city corporation [DNCC] to check whether any ampul was missing. We have also asked for details of Bijoy as he claimed to have worked as a volunteer," said Saiful.
He said the DGHS was informed and it was investigating how the shots got out of the vaccine centre.
Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Atiqul Islam said, "I am yet to receive any letter from the police. We will give full assistance to the police."
He, however, said they would not investigate the matter themselves.
Health officials have squarely blamed the DNCC authorities for the vaccines ending up in the black market.
They also said the vaccination campaign was going smoothly until the special vaccination campaign was held during which around 55 lakh people got vaccinated.
"The vaccination campaign has been monitored by us. But during the special mass vaccination campaign, some new centres were opened under city corporations and all the anomalies happened in the city corporation areas," said a DGHS official, preferring not to be named.
The claim is neither entirely unfounded nor accurate in particular.
On August 12, a councillor of Cumilla City Corporation administered Covid shots to over 100 people at her office.
Photos of Nadia Nasrin, councillor for reserved seat-4, -5 and -6, vaccinating people made the rounds on social media, drawing widespread criticism.
Mir Mubarak Hossain, civil surgeon of Cumilla, said, "There was chaos and the ward councillor took the health workers and vaccines to a nearby place. But the councillor had no permission to administer vaccines to the people."
Many in Chattogram city got vaccinated in their homes during the special campaign. The matter came to light after Md Hasan, 31, posted a photo of him getting the jab on Facebook.
Even big shots got the jabs at home and that too not during the special campaign.
Rajshahi City Corporation Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, his wife, two daughters, and a son-in-law got their jabs at the mayor's home in Uposhohor Housing Estate.
Photos of them getting the shots also made the rounds on Facebook yesterday.
Mayor Liton told The Daily Star yesterday that it happened about three months ago and that he did not know that the shots could not be received outside the designated government facilities.
"If I knew, I would not have done it. Even the government officials concerned did not alert me."
Rajshahi City Corporation's Chief Health Officer Anjumand Ara Begum could not be reached for comments.
Lawmaker Enamul Haque of Rajshahi-4 himself administered a vaccine at a centre in his constituency on August 7.
He later claimed that he was only posing.
On August 10, Tanore Upazila Chairman Lutfar Haider Rashid took his shot at home.
Three health officials were issued show-cause notices regarding the two incidents above. They officials apologised, the civil surgeon said.
There have been reports in which one person received more than one shot in a day in non-city corporation areas.
So far, 3.39 crore people have registered to get the vaccine. Of them, 62.54 lakh got both shots and a little under 1.62 crore got their first jab.
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