16 children to get trial Covid jabs on Thursday
A full-fledged vaccination campaign to follow for children ages 5-11, starting 25 August
Bangladesh is going to vaccinate children between five and 11 years of age against Covid-19 on a trial basis in Dhaka on Thursday.
On the day, sixteen students of a primary school in the capital city will get Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses, according to the District Primary Education Office, Dhaka.
"After the trial vaccination, the children will remain under our observation. Then a full-fledged vaccination programme for children will begin from 25 August," Dr Shamsul Haque, member secretary of the Covid-19 Vaccine Deployment Committee of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told The Business Standard (TBS).
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Sixteen students from class-I to V of the capital's Abul Bashar Government Primary School will get the vaccine, according to the primary education office data.
Shyamoly Rani Malakar, head mistress of the school in the Shere-Bangla Nagar area, told TBS that "We earlier sent a list of the children and their health details to the District Primary Education Office for Covid vaccination."
"Along with the selected kids and their guardians, we will reach Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) at 9am and inoculation will start at 12:30pm," she added.
The vaccine will be given first to students of schools under the city corporations and then to divisional and district level students, Dr Shamsul Haque said.
Currently Bangladesh has 30 lakh specially prepared Pfizer vaccines for children.
"With these we will be able to inoculate 15 lakh children between 5 and 11 years of age. Later, more vaccines will be brought for children," said the DGHS official.
So far, more than five lakh school children ages 5-11 years have registered for Covid-19 jabs.
According to government data, the country has 2.20 crore children between 5-11 years in age.
Earlier in November last year, the government provided the Pfizer vaccine to school students 12-17 years old.
A total of 1.73 crore students have received their first dose and 1.60 crore students got two doses of the vaccine.
