Booster vaccine doses likely from Sunday

PBC News:  Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said 11 crore doses of vaccine have so far been administered in the country. Besides, the government has planned to inject 1.5 crore to 2 crore doses this month.

“We have some 4 crore doses of vaccine in hands. We will also receive 40 lakh doses of vaccine from the United Kingdom. There is no shortage of vaccine,” he said in a press release sent from the Directorate of General of Health Services (DGHS) on Friday (December 17).

The minister said the government has planned to start administering booster doses to the people over 60 and frontliners first from this month. We need to make updated the Surokkha app. “We are hopeful of launching the booster doses this month,” he said following a cabinet meeting on Monday.

“Preparations are underway for the booster doses. At present, there are 2,500 vaccination booths. I have instructed to set up 1,000 more,” the minister said.

Earlier on 11 December, the National Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) on Covid-19 advised the health ministry to do so.

The health minister, on December 9 said the government will soon finalise the list of booster dose recipients to contain the spread of coronavirus infections.

Several countries, including the United States and Singapore, have started providing booster doses to various groups, including health workers, elderly and comorbid patients.

Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna that use mRNA technology provide the biggest boost to antibody levels when given 10-12 weeks after the second dose, a British study published on December 2 found.

Regarding the new variant of Covid-19, the Health Minister said the two female cricketers who were tested with omicron variant are now better. No, third case of omicron has been detected in the country.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh registered two new deaths from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours till Friday morning. With them, the country’s latest death toll has risen to 28,043.

Besides, the country also recorded 191 new cases in the 24-hour period raising the total caseload to 15,80,750 and the total number of recoveries to 1,545,259, according to the DGHS.