Bangladesh scraps 'mass' vaccination plan amid jabs shortage

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - Bangladesh on Monday scrapped its mass COVID-19 inoculation drive due to a shortage of jabs, officials announced.

"We aren't going to continue the mass vaccination campaign as we don't have enough jabs in our hands. And, we won't conduct or use the term 'mass vaccination' drive, anymore," Health Minister Zahid Maleque told reporters in the capital Dhaka following a Cabinet meeting.

Maleque added that registration to get vaccinated will still continue in the South Asian country "depending on the availability of vaccines as we don't want to see long queues at vaccination centers."

Over 35 million people have registered for vaccines, while over 20 million citizens have been inoculated, he said.

The government had previously launched a six-day "mass inoculation drive" starting on Aug. 7 and was expected to extend it further.

Long queues stretched from vaccination centers across the country amid the low availability of vaccines, with many criticizing that the lines violated health safety guidelines against the coronavirus.

Maleque had previously said on Aug. 15 that the mass vaccination drive could not continue due to the dwindling number of doses.

- Vaccines to arrive soon

Bangladesh is expected to get six million more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as a gift in September, the minister added, saying that the country has also ordered more 60 million shots of Chinese vaccines while the country will receive 60.8 million doses under the COVAX facility.

"There will be no vaccine crisis in the country soon, and some 70 to 80 million citizens will be vaccinated between January and February in 2022," he said.

Bangladesh on Monday reported 117 more coronavirus-related deaths and 5,717 new cases, bringing the country's death toll to 25,399 and the total number of confirmed infections over 1.46 million, according to official figures.