Bangladesh starts week-long booster dose campaign

Bangladesh on Saturday kicked off a week-long booster dose campaign, aiming to inoculate over 10 million people across the country, reports UNB.

"The campaign began at 9:00am on Saturday. It will continue till 10 June," said Shamsul Haque, director of the Corona Vaccination Campaign of the Health Services Division.

The government has taken this initiative to cover over ten million people though nearly four crore citizens are waiting to get the booster dose, he said.

According to the Health Services Division, the booster doses will be administered in 16,181 centres across the country. Of these, 623 are permanent centres while 15,558 are temporary ones.

As many as 45,535 health workers and volunteers have been roped in for the campaign, officials said. Adults who got their second dose some four months ago are eligible for the booster shot.

Alongside the booster dose campaign, the regular activities of administering Covid jabs are on.

Bangladesh registered 29 new Covid cases in 24 hours till Friday morning, taking the country's total caseload to 1,953,592.

The country's total fatalities remained unchanged at 29,131 as no deaths were reported during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

In May, the country reported only four Covid-linked deaths and 816 new cases while 7,356 patients recovered from the disease, according to the DGHS.