Govt to vaccinate 2.5m people each month

With a plan to bring 80 per cent people of the country under the mass immunisation programme in phases, finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday said the government will vaccinate 2.5 million (25 lakh) people each month.

He came up with the announcement while presenting the national budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year in the parliament.

“Plans have been formulated to vaccinate 80 per cent of people in phases. In the first phase, people with high risks of contracting coronavirus will be vaccinated and some 2.5 million (25 lakh) will be vaccinated each month,” added the minister.

Referring to prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent announcement that the government will ensure free vaccination for all, Kamal said they will provide as much allocation as it is needed to bear the expenses of procuring the required doses of vaccine. “We’ll make adequate allocation for this purpose in the budget.”

He said the vaccination programme is being implemented at the field level through coordination between the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) and the Communication Disease Control (CDC).

AHM Mustafa Kamal said the national deployment and vaccination plan has been prepared under the EPI to protect the lives of people from Covid-19.

“The government procured 30 million (3 crore) doses of Covishield vaccine of Oxford-AstraZeneca from the Serum Institute of India. In addition, 68 million (6.8 crore) doses will be available from the Covax initiative the World Health Organisation it will cover 20 per cent of our total population that is, some 34 million (3.4 crore) people will be vaccinated under this initiative,” he said.

AHM Mustafa kamal further said there are plans to buy vaccines from the governments of China and Russia, Pfizer from the USA and Sanofi or GSK from France and Belgium respectively. “Negotiations are at the final stage for procuring Sinopharm vaccine from China and Sputnik-V vaccine from Russia, and, if necessary, manufacturing the same in Bangladesh.