Published in: The Daily Star
Date: 17 November, 2021

People who do not have national identity cards can get Covid-19 vaccines from community clinics and other temporary centres showing any other identification papers, like birth certificate or passport.

Not only that, rural people can receive their jabs with identification certificates issued by local UP chairmen or members and people are already getting jabbed this way.

The NID is mandatory for vaccine registration through Surokkha apps, a standard protocol that many people in rural areas find difficult to comply with for various reasons.

The government has recently relaxed the rules to ramp up the inoculation drive and attain the goal of vaccinating 80 percent of the population by April next year.

“We want to scale up the vaccination campaign. Many people have been facing difficulties registering with the Surokkha apps. So, we have decided that eligible people can go to the designated vaccination centres with whatever identification cards they have to be jabbed,” Md Shamsul Haque, line director of DGHS and member secretary of Covid-19 vaccine deployment committee, told The Daily Star.

He said birth certificate or passport or certificate issued by local UP chairmen or members would be considered valid identification document for those who don’t have NID cards.

“A recipient will get a temporary vaccine card for that,” said the DGHS official, adding, “To get vaccine certificates, they will have to follow the standard registration process protocol after obtaining NID cards.”

The official added that those who don’t have NID cards won’t be vaccinated in regular centres across the country.

“They will get their jabs at community clinics across the country and also in temporary centres,” he said.

“We have a strong network of community clinics. We have been engaging all the community clinics to reach more people. Rural people still have reluctance in getting the vaccine. So, the community clinics will make them aware of vaccination,” said Health Minister Zahid Maleque recently.

The country has around 13,200 community clinics, according to DGHS.

DGHS officials said they already vaccinated around 25 lakh people in a single day engaging the community clinics.

“We have taken a target of inoculating three crore people in a month. Hopefully, we can achieve more than that,” the minister said.

The government has set a target to jab 10 lakh doses daily from this month to ramp up the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, which has gathered some pace in recent months following smooth supply of vaccines.

Earlier, around five lakh people got vaccines on an average day.

Asked about the progress, DGHS official Shamsul said, “We have inoculated around 1.27 crore people in the last 15 days.”

He also hoped that they would be able to fulfil the goal of inoculating 80 percent of the targeted population by the end of April next year.

The country has so far received around nine crore vaccine doses of different brands from various sources, shows the DGHS data.

Around 5.1 crore people have got their first dose while around 3.3 crore people got both doses, shows the data. It is around 25 percent of the targeted population, aged 18 and above, got the double jabs.

The country has suffered frequent hiccups in its regular mass inoculation since it began in February due to a dearth of doses caused by a yawning gap between commitments and compliance in vaccine supply.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a gradual decline in the number of Covid deaths and infections over the last couple of months after the Delta variant of the coronavirus, detected in May, ravaged the country in June and July.

BOOSTER VACCINE

The government may roll out Covid-19 booster vaccine once the target of inoculating 80 percent of the population is reached, Health Minister Maleque said yesterday.

“If there is a need for booster doses, we definitely will [make arrangements] … We will think of covering the vulnerable population first. We will also follow what the other countries are doing,” he said at an event at the State Guest House where Saudi Arabia handed over 1.5 million AstraZeneca shots to Bangladesh.

The Gulf country gave the doses as a gift.

Meanwhile, the campaign to inoculate slum residents aged 18 and above started yesterday in the capital’s Korail.

The slum dwellers registered on-the-spot and received the shots.

At a vaccination centre in Palli Bandhu Ershad Bidyaloy in Korail, this newspaper saw the residents turning up with great enthusiasm.

The campaign will be expanded to more slums in Dhaka and other cities later.

Meanwhile, the health directorate yesterday reported that two Covid-19 patients died in 24 hours preceding 8:00am. After testing 20,764 individuals, the health directorate reported 213 new cases of Covid-19, marking a positivity rate of 1.03 percent.

Source: https://www.thedailystar.net/health/disease/coronavirus/fallouts-fightback/vaccine/news/covid-vaccination-dont-need-nid-anymore-2231676