Lack of awareness and people's unwillingness to take jabs has sent health authorities scrambling as fears grow of 15 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccines reaching the expiration date before inoculation amid a resurge of infections.
The vaccines – 17,16,900 doses – were sent to district and upazila level hospitals in April as part of the UN initiative of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI Programme) by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Speaking to Dhaka Stream, EPI programme manager Abul Fazal Md Shahabuddin Khan said the doses had been sent to protect high risk groups across the country, such as health workers and pregnant women.
He said the programme had been divided into two parts – one for people who have not been inoculated and the other for people who had been administered the vaccines at least once.
According to the DGHS, some 617 cases and 23 Covid deaths were identified till 5 July this year.
"But despite our utmost attempts, it seems like we can barely attract people. According to our upazila EPI officials the number is very poor. In many facilities, not even a single dose has been administered," he said.
"The worst part is, the expiration date for the vaccines sent across the country is August 6, 2025."
Line director for Communicable Disease Control under the DGHS, SM Abdullah-Al-Murad, also the member secretary of the Covid-19 Vaccine Management Taskforce Committee, said people were reluctant to get the jabs despite Covid cases rising amid the spread of the new variant.
Asked why this was the case, he said, "We could not create public awareness and also due to lack of funds. Development partners have already suspended donating money for Covid-19," he added.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Medical University's former vice-chancellor Professor Kamrul Hasan has cautioned that vaccine quality depends on preservation.
The preservation of the vaccine at the upazila level remained a big issue.
"The effectiveness of this vaccine against the latest variant of Covid still needs research. But for their own safety people should take the vaccine before those expire," he said.
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