Shawdesh Desk:

The government has lowered the age limit of general people for receiving booster dose of coronavirus vaccine to 40 years from 50 years in a bid to ensure special protection for people amid the ongoing fresh wave of the virus transmission in the country.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque came up with the announcement at a press conference at the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons in Dhaka on Sunday.

“From now on, people aged 40 and above will be able to get a booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine”, he said.

So far, 9.70 crore people have received the first dose and of them, six crore have received second dose.

Mentioning that the Covid-19 situation is becoming grimmer in the country due to the violation of health safety guidelines, the minister said the real number of infections is multiple times higher than detected and if this continues, the daily death toll will rise to 60 or more.

“We’ll bring all those above 12 under the vaccination programme. Earlier, we provided vaccines to school and college students but now all above 12, including the madrasah students, will be brought under the vaccination programme,” he said.

Replying to a question about the vaccination process, the Health Minister said, “Those above 12 can get the vaccine when they’ll go to the vaccine centres. We won’t let anyone go unvaccinated.”

Answering a question about vaccinating children above five years, the minister said, “We’ve had discussions with the World Health Organisation over the issue and they said they’ll let us know.”

On December 28 last year, Bangladesh officially began administering booster doses of a Covid-19 vaccine but “on a limited scale”.

Initially, citizens, aged above 60, received the booster doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

On January 12, the Directorate General of Health Services’ (DGHS) instructed to administer Moderna vaccine instead of the Phfizer jabs as the third or booster dose at all vaccine centres across the country.

On January 17, the government lowered the age limit for receiving the Covid booster dose up to 50.