Trial vaccination of school children kicks off in Manikganj

Covid-19 vaccination of school children has started today on a trial basis.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque inaugurated the trial run vaccination programme at Colonel Malek Medical College Hospital of Manikganj at 12:30pm.

Initially, 100 students of two government high schools in Manikganj, aged 12-17 years, will be vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech doses.

Vaccinating school students on a larger scale will begin afterwards.

"We have chosen Manikganj, the electoral area of the health minister, for vaccinating children due to some technical reasons," said ABM Khurshid Alam, director-general of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), at an online briefing on Wednesday.

"We will observe the vaccinated children for the next 10-14 days – whether they show signs of any side effects – and then the vaccination campaign for students will begin in Dhaka on a larger scale," he added.

Earlier, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI), a public-private global health partnership, have consented to the initiative.

At present, the government has 60 lakh Pfizer doses in stock, all of which will be used to fully inoculate 30 lakh students, according to the minister.

The country reported 17 more deaths from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours till 8 am Wednesday.

Bangladesh set a target to vaccinate the country's 80 percent population by 2022 under an accelerated inoculation campaign, expecting receipt of required Covid-19 jabs within estimated timeline.