People aged over 40 to be vaccinated: Health minister

People aged 40 and above will be inoculated in the first phase of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said on Monday.

Apart from this, the family members of the people who have already been vaccinated will also get the jabs.

The health minister instructed the authorities concerned in this regard today, Maidul Islam Prodhan, senior information officer of the health ministry, said.

According to the previous health guidelines, people aged 55 years and above were to be vaccinated during the first phase.

The health minister formally inaugurated the mass inoculation campaign across the country on Sunday.

On the first day, the vaccination drive kicked off at 1,000 hospitals across the country, including simultaneously at 47 hospitals in the capital.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) some 31,160 people have so far been vaccinated and of them, 5,071 were residents of the capital.

The government was prepared for vaccinating over 3 lakh people on the first day across the country.

The DGHS, in a statement, has said the people who were vaccinated on the first day will have to take the second jabs on March 8 as per the guideline.

Some very important people like the chief justice, ministers, members of the parliament, and senior officials of the police department were vaccinated on Sunday.

Since the outbreak of the virus in China in December 2019, the first case of the coronavirus was detected in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020 and the first death was recorded after 10 days of the same month.

The mass inoculation drive began when the infection and death rate of the coronavirus is now on a downwards trend, according to official data.