Vaccination for school students to begin within a week: DGHS chief

Three students on the way to school in Shajahanpur, Bogura on 19 SeptemberFile photo

A campaign to vaccinate school students aged 12 and above will start within a week, said Directorate General of Health Services chief ABM Khurshid Alam on Tuesday.

“The inoculation drive for school children between the age of 12 and 17 will start this week,” said the health directorate DG while talking to newspersons following an event at the health department, reports UNB.

He said 21 centres have been selected at the district and city corporation levels across the country for this purpose.

“The Pfizer vaccine will be used for children,” he said, adding, “School authorities will provide us with the lists of their students. We’ll pass that on to the Surokkha app server afterwards.”

The DGHS head said jabs will initially be administered to 50-100 selected children on trial basis.

“We run trials before giving any vaccine. Fifty to 100 children will be selected for this,” he said.

Earlier this month, education minister Dipu Moni said preparations are underway to vaccinate school students above 12 years of age.

On Sunday, the World Health Organization gave an approval to the vaccination of those who are under 18 years of age in Bangladesh, said health minister Zahid Maleque.

"I’ve met WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and he has given a nod to it [vaccination of those under 18] when we sought his advice on vaccination of students," he said.

The health minister said students between 12-17 years will be inoculated with US-produced Pfizer vaccine doses as it is suitable for them.

“We’re preparing for that. We have 6 million doses of Pfizer vaccine in stock and we’ll get another four million doses soon. We’ve no jab crisis now.“