Huge response as mass vaccination rolls out
The government rolled out a countrywide Covid vaccination drive on Saturday, with people thronging vaccine centres in their thousands.
This time people at the union level have been brought under the immunisation coverage for the first time and as many as 32 lakh people will be given their first shot in the six-day programme.
A majority of vaccine centres were overcrowded with people. The crowds were in cases several times more than the vaccine doses the centres had in stock.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Health guidelines were disregarded and experts spoke of concerns that a spread of infections was highly likely due to the mismanagement seen in the immunization campaign.
People aged above 25 years could receive shots showing their national identity cards, without online registrations. But since there were more people than the doses, many people had to return after waiting in long queues without being vaccinated.
One of them was Bajlur Rahman who went to the ward-28 centre at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Academy at around 8:30am. More than four hours later, he was told that the centre ran out of doses.
Another candidate, Fatema Akhter complained about her sufferings.
"I had to push through a crowd to get the jab. While trying to receive the vaccine people will be at a higher risk of getting infected in such crowded situations."
People nearly triple the vaccine doses available thronged to immunization camps set up in Dhaka South and Dhaka North city corporation. Many stood in queues as early as 6:00pm.
Professor Sayedur Rahman, chairman of pharmacology department, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, told The Business Standard that crowds could have been avoided had teams of healthcare workers and volunteers helped register people for vaccination using their NIDs and informed them of the dates of vaccination through messages to their mobile phones.
Now vaccine centres have turned into the source of infection transmission, he said. Moreover, elderly people are at risk of not getting vaccine.
Sayedur also said the mass inoculation drive would not be successful in containing virus transmission. "Vaccines bring down deaths. So, instead of conducting such a campaign, elderly and vulnerable people should have been prioritized, which would lower the death toll."
He said people should be made as interested in wearing masks as they were keen on vaccination.
At first, the health ministry announced a plan to inoculate 1 crore people in six days but the target was lowered due to the shortage of doses.
At the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Medical University Doctors' Dormitory Center in Paribagh, there was not enough seating arrangement for the sick and the elderly.
There were no serial arrangements or designated lines and people were violating social distancing and health rules. Many, who received their first dose earlier, stood in lines to receive the second jab though they did not get any text message on their mobile phones regarding the second dose.
Expatriate Ismail Hossain, 30, from Cumilla came to Dhaka spending Tk2,500 to get vaccinated.
"I have been waiting since 7am to get vaccinated. My legs are hurting now," he told The Business Standard at around 11am.
DNCC (Region 5) Executive Officer Md Masud Hossain said, "Those who did not get vaccine today were asked to come tomorrow."
According to the health directorate, the campaign will continue until 12 August. Under the programme, people will be vaccinated at 4,600 unions, 1,054 union parishads and 433 wards in city corporations.
Rohingyas from Myanmer will also be brough under the programme. Another campaign will be conducted in September to give the second doses.
Health Minister Zahid Malik said the government was aiming to immunize poor and elderly people in rural areas in the campaign to reduce deaths from Covid among them.
