Bangladesh receives first consignment of Covid-19 vaccine for children

Bangladesh on Saturday received first consignment of paediatric Covid-19 vaccines, reports news agency BSS.

A total of 1,502,400 doses of specially prepared Pfizer vaccine arrived in Dhaka.

The director of the health department, M Shamsul Haque, confirmed the matter.

The vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech - are meant for children aged 5-11 years, said Shamsul Haque, member secretary of the Covid-19 Vaccine Deployment Committee of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

“We plan to start this school-based vaccination from next month,” Haque said, adding, “But the vaccination starting date yet to fix.”

He further said, “It will be finalised at the policy-making stage. Hopefully, vaccination will be possible next month.”

Shamsul Haque said that vaccines will be given in the capital at the beginning.

“After sending to school, we have children in the community who do not come to school, we will campaign for them and vaccinate them,” he added.

The government announced the decision to vaccinate 5 to 11-year-old children in April.

With the help of the Ministry of Education, the work of preparing the list of children is going on through the concerned educational institutions.

The number of children of this age in the country is about 44 million.

The health department has got a guarantee of 41 million vaccines.

Children will be vaccinated two doses and 88 million doses of vaccine will be required for this.

The health department started giving Coronavirus vaccine to the people from February 2021.