Fourth Covid-19 shot campaign begins

A special campaign for administering the fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose starts today.

Ahmedul Kabir, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, launched the campaign at Kurmitola general Hospital in Dhaka at 9:00am.

People aged above 60, who already received their third Covid jabs, will be vaccinated under this campaign, according to the DGHS.

Besides, frontliners, pregnant women, immunocompromised people and citizens aged 18 and above suffering from chronic diseases will be given the vaccine during the campaign, according to the circular signed by Shamsul Haque, member secretary of Covid-19 vaccine management taskforce committee.

The frontliners include -- freedom fighters, staffers of the health ministry, its fellow organisations and authorised private healthcare organisations, all employees of the government, private and autonomous organisations, law enforcement and military personnel, journalists, bank employees, national team players and others working in the frontline.

Only Pfizer vaccine will be used in the campaign and the jabs will be given at permanent vaccination centres across the country.

There are around 1,000 such centres, according to the DGHS.

As of December 14, around 14.9 crore people have been inoculated with the first dose while more than 12.65 crore people with the second dose and around 6.46 crore with the booster dose against Covid-19.

The government started mass inoculation against the Covid-19 vaccine on February 8 last year using Oxford-AstraZeneca's vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India.

Later, six other Covid-19 vaccines developed by different companies were added to the list. Those are -- Pfizer, Sinopharm, Moderna, Sinovac, Johnson and Johnson, and Pfizer-PD (Comirnaty).