Bangladesh gives COVID vaccine to over 1.8m people in 11 days

The number of people who have received their first shot of the coronavirus vaccine in Bangladesh has exceeded 1.84 million, with more than 260,000 doses administered on Thursday, 11 days after the mass immunisation drive began.

Only 537 of those who got the jabs so far reported mild side effects, according to the Directorate General of Health Services or DGHS.  

At the 46 hospitals and centres in Dhaka, over 32,000 people took the jab on Thursday, with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University administering the highest number of 1,425.

Division-wise, Dhaka administered 73,514 doses, Mymensingh 11,901, Chattogram 54,788, Rajshahi 32,224, Rangpur 25,579, Khulna 34,195, Barishal 14,444 and Sylhet 15,300.

The government is administering the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine doses, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, for free.

It has targeted to give the vaccines to total 130 million people, with 3.5 million doses in the first month of the drive.

Bangladesh started the mass immunisation drive with seven million doses of the vaccine.

The Indian government sent two million doses as gift while Bangladesh imported five million doses under a deal to buy 30 million doses.

The DGHS said they have the capacity to administer 300,000 doses a day.