Govt to roll out 3rd, 4rth dose of Covid vaccine by this week: Health minister

The government will begin administering the third and the fourth doses of the coronavirus vaccine from the current week as the virus started spreading afresh in many places in the world including China.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque came up with the announcement at a press conference held at his ministry office in Dhaka on Monday afternoon.

“We received 30 lahk more doses of VCV (Variant Containing Vaccine) vaccines under Covax facilities. These vaccines will be administered as the 3rd and 4th dose to the target population from the current week through the permanent Covid vaccine centres at city corporation, district, upazila and municipal level in the country,” he said.

Bangladesh got 11 percent of the total vaccines received by other countries in the entire world and with the vaccine, the government has brought 88.51 percent of people under the first dose coverage, 82.18 percent under the second dose, 39.62 percent under the third dose and 1.85 people under the fourth dose coverage, he said.

About the targeted population, he said that the 3rd dose will be given to those who are 18 years or above, and the 4th dose will be given to those who are 60 years or above with comorbidities, pregnant women and front-line fighters.

The 3rd dose will be given 4 months after receiving the 2nd dose and the 4th dose will be given 4 months after receiving the 3rd dose, said Maleque.

the Directorate General of Health Service (DGHS) in a handout said that a total of 159 new cases of coronavirus were detected from across the country in the last 24 hours till Monday morning.

With the new cases, the total case of the virus rose to 20,39,130 as of Monday, said the DGHS in the handout this evening.

Besides, 21 patients recovered from the virus-related illness during the same period, taking the total number of the recovery to 20,06,233, according to the handout.