Primary school teachers to be vaccinated within a week: Minister

A nurse injects the Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine to a person at the Dhaka Medical College vaccination centre in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 9 February 2021
Reuters

Teachers of all the government primary schools will be administered COVID-19 vaccine within a week, said state minister for primary and mass education Zakir Hossain, reports news agency UNB.

The minister said this while talking to newspersons after taking the vaccine at a clinic building in the secretariat on Tuesday.

“Already prime minister Sheikh Hasina has asked the health ministry to bring the teachers under the vaccination drive. We will try our best to complete their vaccination within the next seven days,” the minister said in peply to a question.

He also urged teachers and staff of the ministry who are above 40 to come and get vaccinated.

Zakir Hossain also requested all to use face mask.

Nationwide vaccination drive

The government rolled out a countrywide mass COVID-19 vaccination drive on Sunday, aiming to end the pandemic.

Health minister Zahid Maleque inaugurated the nationwide inoculation programme through a videoconference from the Health Directorate around 10:30am.

Health minister Zahid Maleque received the first shot of the vaccine at Sheikh Russel National Gastroliver Institute & Hospital in the morning.

According to the DGHS, 50 booths have been set up in 50 hospitals in Dhaka while a total of 204 teams of health workers will administer the vaccine.

Situation in Bangladesh

Bangladesh reported 16 new COVID-19 deaths on Monday, taking the national death tally to 8,221.

The mortality rate in the country now stands at 1.53 per cent, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in a handout.

Bangladesh witnessed a daily infection rate of 2.30 per cent with 316 new cases in the last 24 hours, pushing up the caseload to 538,378.

Earlier, on 1 January, the daily infection rate was 8.18 per cent.

So far, 37,62,774 tests, including 13,762 new ones, have been carried out since the first cases were reported on 8 March.

The overall infection rate now stands at 14.31 per cent. However, 483,931 patients – 89.89 per cent – have recovered so far, the DGHS said.

Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus cases on 8 March and the first death on 18 March last year.