The government has planned to set up a total of 7,344 booths, like polling centres, to vaccinate people around the country, officials have said.
However, unlike the polling booths in schools and community centres, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) will set up vaccination centres at union parishads, upazila’s health complexes, district or sadar hospital, public and private medical college hospital, specialised hospitals, police hospitals, BGB Hospitals, combined military hospitals and chest disease hospital.
Line director of DGHS’s Maternal, Neonatal and Child health programmes, Md Shamsul Haque said, “we will set up a total 7,344 vaccination centres around the country.”
DGHS said corona vaccine will not be given to anyone below the age of 18. Besides, pregnant mothers will not get the dose against COVID-19. People need to complete online registration to get vaccinated. Upon registration, vaccine-recipients will get a COVID-19 vaccination card.
With the registration number and date, the card will contain the person's name, age, date of birth, parents' name, address and national identity card number. Recipients will have to bring the card with them on the day of vaccination.
Officials of DGHS said the recipient will be informed about the date and center of vaccination through text message. Professor Abul Basar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, director general of the DGHS, told Prothom Alo on Sunday that some 100 to 150 people will be vaccinated every day at a centre.
It will take 7 to 10 minutes for each person to verify the identity, sign the consent form and inoculate the vaccine.
The DGHS will appoint six people at each centre to conduct the vaccination programme. Two of them are health professionals who will inoculate vaccines and the other four volunteers will work for the vaccines management.
Apart from this, the government is planning to deploy law enforcers at the centres.
According to the DGHS, a list of the vaccine recipients will be hung up at the entrance of each center. During entering the center, a volunteer will check the vaccination card and another one will verify the information. Each person must sign in a consent form or give a fingerprint before taking COVID-19 vaccine.
Maintaining social distance, a seating arrangement for the vaccine recipients has been made inside the centres, DGHS officials said. Like voting centres, the privacy will also be maintained in the vaccination booth, the officials added.
DG Mohammad Khurshid Alam said, “The vaccination will start at 10:00 am. We will ask everyone to wait 10 to 15 minutes after getting vaccinated. This time has been set to observe the recipient. If anyone has any side effects, action will be taken immediately."
*This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, been rewritten in English by NH Sajjad.