Massive vaccination to begin in July: PM

Assuring that a massive vaccination drive will begin in the country in July, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said the government will provide any amount of money needed to collect Covid-19 vaccines to ensure free inoculation for all.

“I’ve already announced that the government will ensure free vaccination for all. We’ll provide funds, no matter how much is needed, to collect the necessary vaccines to this end,” she said.

The Prime Minister said this while participating in the general discussion in the House on the proposed national budget for 2021-22 fiscal year.

She said the government has kept aside Tk 14,200 crore in the national budget for vaccine collection.

“We’ve taken a plan to bring 80 per cent of people under the vaccination coverage in phases,” Hasina told the House.

She said the government started contacting the countries developing vaccines when it was at the research stage and provided money to book vaccines.

But, she said, Bangladesh fell into trouble to some extent for the time being as India banned vaccine export after a massive surge in the coronavirus infections there.

“Now we’ve managed it. There’ll be no problem for us anymore (in collecting vaccines),” said the Prime Minister.

Mentioning that the government is in touch with China, Russia, the USA and all other vaccine-producing countries and companies, she said her government has already collected 1.14 crore doses of vaccines from different sources.

“We expect that more vaccines would come in this July and we’ll start the vaccination on a massive scale,” the Prime Minister added.