Bangladesh to start week-long campaign to expedite COVID-19 vaccination with booster doses

Dhaka [Bangladesh], May 31 (ANI/Xinhua): Bangladesh will conduct a week-long special campaign from June 4 to expedite the inoculation with COVID-19 booster doses.
People aged 18 and above, who have received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccines at least four months earlier, will be allowed to receive a booster jab during this special campaign. The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) under the Ministry of Health issued a release on Tuesday in this regard.
According to the release, people can receive the booster dose at the nearest vaccination centre from 9:00 a.m. local time every day till June 10.
Bangladesh began its COVID-19 vaccination drive in January last year to contain the pandemic. The Bangladeshi government halted administering the first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine after India banned vaccine exports and resumed in June last year vaccine rollout in parts of the South Asian country with the China-donated Sinopharm vaccines.
More than half of the vaccines administered in the country were China’s Sinopharm vaccines. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said here Tuesday that it has delivered over 190 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Bangladesh through the COVAX Facility, a global initiative for equal access to vaccines led by the World Health Organization along with several other organizations, with UNICEF as a key delivery partner.
To date, Bangladesh remains a top recipient of doses under COVAX, it said. According to UNICEF, COVAX accounts for more than 62 per cent of the total doses Bangladesh has received, and the country has so far fully vaccinated 69 per cent of its population. (ANI/Xinhua)