Bangladesh plans COVID-19 vaccine shot for high-risk groups

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The Bangladeshi government is planning a campaign soon to offer COVID-19 vaccine doses in order to boost people's fading immunity against the infectious disease, an official has said.

Md Abu Jafor, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said Wednesday that the campaign will be launched to inoculate people above the age of 60, frontline workers and those suffering from comorbidities.

He said DGHS has a stock of approximately 1.7 million COVID-19 vaccine shots for the vaccination campaign.

Amid a fresh rise in COVID-19 infections in several neighbouring countries, the Bangladeshi interim government has already asked people to refrain from travelling to those destinations unless absolutely necessary.

The DGHS under the Ministry of Health has also instructed the relevant authorities to enhance health screening and surveillance measures at all ports to contain the spread of the infection.

The directives, which were issued Monday, stated that new subvariants of the coronavirus are spreading in several neighbouring countries, including India.

After 13 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Bangladesh in the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning, the country reported 10 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

Bangladesh on June 5 recorded its first COVID-19 fatality this year when a man died from the infectious disease in capital Dhaka.