The government has decided to administer booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine to people above 60 years of age, said health minister Zahid Maleque on Tuesday.
“Booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine will be administered to people who are above 60 years of age and critically ill. Many countries have already done that. The starting date will be fixed after discussion,” said the minister at a media briefing after a meeting at the ministry.
The meeting was organised to take decisions on the steps to be taken to curb Omicron, the new variant of novel coronavirus first detected in South Africa.
President of national technical committee on coronavirus affairs Mohammad Shahidullah and officials of different ministries, departments and organisations were present at the meeting.
As part of the preparation to curb the spread of Omicron variant of novel coronavirus, the government has already decided to control travelling, strengthening the initiatives to detect the infected people and taking steps to make people aware of public health through massive publicity.
On 26 November, the World Health Organisation declared the Omicron variant as a “variant of concern”. On the next day the organisation termed the variant as highly risky. For this various countries have been imposing travel restrictions anew.
No Bangladeshi has been detected with the Omicron variant infection as of Tuesday.