Published in: The Daily Star
Date: 23 July, 2021

Government is planning to lower the age limit from 30 to 18 years to be eligible for Covid-19 vaccine shot among mass people.

“Health minister has already instructed to find out a way to reduce the age bar to 18 years. We will devise a way to reduce it,” Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, director general of Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS) while visiting Covid patients at Mugda Medical College Hospital in the capital.

He said the government is also planning to ease the registration process of vaccine in rural areas. “The government is thinking of administering the Covid-19 vaccine in the rural areas, the way the other jabs are administered.”

The DG urged the people of the country to take the vaccine. “I talked with some critical patients at Mugda hospital but they did not take the vaccine.”

He said people should take vaccine as it reduces the risk even after infection and also reduces the chance of admitting in the hospital.

The government’s inoculation drive, which began on February 7 and revolved mainly around Serum’s vaccine supply, came to a grinding halt after New Delhi suspended vaccine export in the last week of April due to a massive surge in Covid infections in India.

Bangladesh suspended administering the first dose on April 26. The inoculation of first dose resumed on a limited scale this month with the arrival of Sinopharm and Pfizer vaccines.

But the administering of the second Covishield jab among around 15 lakh people hangs in the balance due to suspension of supply from Serum, the largest vaccine producer in the world.

Bangladesh is supposed to get 6.8 crore vaccine doses this year under Covax facility. Those could cover around 20 percent of the population.

But the country has so far received 1.06 lakh doses of Pfizer and 55 lakh doses of Moderna vaccines from Covax.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/health/disease/coronavirus/fallouts-fightback/vaccine/news/govt-planning-lower-age-limit-covid-19-vaccine-18-2135341