Bangladesh to continue mass vaccination drive on Friday as crowds grow bigger

The government will keep vaccination centres countrywide open on Friday after its announcement that the mass vaccination drive will not be relaunched after Feb 26 sparked a rush for jabs at walk-in sites.

People above the age of 12 will be allowed to take COVID vaccines at vaccination centres without prior registration, the Directorate General of Health Services said in a statement issued on Thursday.

The DGHS said it sent instructions to the chief health officials of all city corporations, district-level civil surgeons, health and family welfare officials and medical officers of every municipality regarding the matter.

“The government targets to inoculate 10 million people in a single-day drive on Feb 26, before halting administration of the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine. The decision has been taken to reduce pressure at vaccination centres on that day,” the directorate said citing the instruction issued by Md Shamsul Haque, member secretary of the vaccine deployment committee of the Health Services Division.

“There has been a massive public response surrounding the single-day vaccination drive on Feb 26. The crowds of people are growing bigger every day at different vaccination centres throughout the country. We urged the officials to open additional vaccination centres if necessary to meet people’s demand,” the statement read.

“In terms of need, we will launch a campaign to administer first doses of the coronavirus vaccine to citizens but mass vaccination drive will not be relaunched after Feb 26. Routine vaccination drive will continue across the country,” Haque said.

Bangladesh launched its COVID-19 vaccination campaign in February 2021 but had to suspend it for some time due to a supply crisis. After new shipments of vaccines came in, the rate of vaccination increased.

A mass vaccination campaign was undertaken for six days starting on Aug 7 last year and the first dose was administered to some 5 million people. Nearly 3 million doses were administered on the first day of the campaign alone.

But this is the first time Bangladesh has attempted to administer as many as 7.5 million vaccine doses in a single day.