Bangladesh plans to resume on-site vaccine registration for senior citizens

Elderly citizens will soon be allowed to register for vaccine shots at inoculation centres, says Health Secretary Md Abdul Mannan.

That will also encourage the rural people to get vaccinated, Mannan said while inspecting the vaccination centre at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University on Saturday.

“So far 1.4 million people have registered for vaccine doses. We will assess the statistics once 3.5 million people are vaccinated. If the rural people are less interested in taking vaccine shots, we will have to motivate them,” he said.

“Elderly people with special needs will be signed up on the spot with their national ID cards. We are thinking of taking such a decision,” Mannan said.

As of Thursday, around 550,000 people were inoculated nationwide and the figure may cross 600,000 by Saturday. That was possible due to Bangladesh’s experience in vaccinating the masses, he added.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Feb 2 said that if individuals fail to register for the vaccine online, they would be able to do so at the vaccination centres.

The nationwide campaign was launched on Feb 7 with the said facility. However, people leaned on registering on the spot, overcrowding the centres. In an effort to resolve the issue, the government suspended on-site registration.