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29 March 2024


Business Insider Bangladesh

Children aged 5-11 to get covid jabs from Aug 11: Maleque

BI Report || BusinessInsider

Published: 14:18, 7 August 2022   Update: 14:35, 7 August 2022
Children aged 5-11 to get covid jabs from Aug 11: Maleque

Business Insider Bangladesh Photo

Experimental coronavirus vaccination of children aged five to 11 years will begin Thursday, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque.

The health minister came up with the information after inaugurating the Breastfeeding Week 2022 at the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine in the capital on Sunday.

Zahid Maleque said, “After monitoring the situation, mass vaccination of children of this particular age group will start in the last week of this month”.

Regarding the overall vaccination situation in the country, the health minister said the vaccines will expire soon. So, he urged people to get vaccinated.

Earlier on July 30, the first consignment of 15 lakh Pfizer vaccine doses for five to 11 years old children reached Dhaka on Saturday, according to the health department.

Primarily around 2.20 crore children within the age group will be brought under the vaccine programme, Shamsul Haque, director Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told Business Insider Bangladesh.

The government has inoculated the coronavirus vaccine to children aged between 12 and 17 years by setting up booths at educational institutions across the country.

The five to 11 years aged children will be given the vaccine following the same system and the time and place for the vaccination campaign will be known immediately, said the government official.

Earlier, a group of researchers claimed to have found the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is safe and well tolerated and said it produces a robust antibody immune response in children aged five to 11 years.

In April, the government announced to inoculate children of five to 11 years age group. Accordingly, enlisting the children of this age group is underway with support from the education ministry.

The country has some 4.40 crore children of this age group. Each of the children will get two doses of this vaccine.

Nagad
Walton