Hasina urges citizens to banish fears about COVID-19 testing, vaccination

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called on the citizens to not pay attention to anything that might create confusion about coronavirus vaccination or testing of samples.

Hasina asked anyone with the symptoms of the disease to get their sample tested.

While speaking on the occasion of the founding anniversary of Awami Swechchhasebak League via videoconferencing on Tuesday, she also urged everyone to become inoculated as the government is setting up vaccination centres in villages.

The government on Tuesday announced that vaccination drives will be carried out at union levels due to the soaring rate of coronavirus cases and fatalities in the country.

“We’re preparing to vaccinate people even in the villages. It’s not that everyone there has to register. They can register directly at the vaccination centres with only their National ID cards,” Hasina said.

“We’re trying to gather whatever vaccine we can from wherever it is possible. We’ve set aside funds for the purpose. If needed, we’ll pour in more money.

“We’re ensuring that 80 percent of the people of the country can be inoculated following WHO instructions on who can get the vaccines. We’ve already vaccinated almost 187 million people.”

The prime minister said she was made aware that people’s fear involving vaccination did dissipate but many were still not eager to have their samples tested.

“I got this information from the villages. Nobody wants to be tested. They think they’ll become isolated if they test positive and no one will mix with them. This is actually not true.”

Rather, those testing positive will get treatment and authorities will be able to prevent the disease from spreading from them, she said.

Hasina urged the leaders and members of the Swechchhasebak League to come forward and actively build awareness among people about taking the vaccines and testing samples.

“Just help the masses out, which you have done before. You will do this so everyone receives the vaccine. If we can complete administering the vaccines, there’ll be no more worries. Even if someone gets infected after that, the harm will be reduced.”

She lauded the members of the Swechchhasebak League for standing by the people during such a crisis, and mentioned that the Awami League and its associate organisations were the ones to help people out during the pandemic.

“There are many other parties in Bangladesh...we sometimes hear that they, too, help people out, but the Swechchhasebak League was the one actually assisting the people and standing by them visibly.”