“Those who have a comorbidity, or major health risks will get the booster vaccine,” stated Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, the director common of well being companies, at a dialogue with members of the Bangladesh Health Reporters Forum on Monday.
“Age will not be a barrier in those cases.”
Bangladesh started distributing COVID booster doses on Dec 28. Currently, these over the age of 60 and people engaged on the frontlines of illness prevention are the one ones getting the third dose. Anyone receiving the booster should even have obtained the second dose of the vaccine over six months in the past.
Those who’ve a excessive risk of loss of life from the illness ought to get the booster, Dr Khurshid Alam stated.
“They will have to bring their vaccine card to the vaccination centre and say that they have a physical ailment. Why should we exclude a cancer patient who is under the age of 40? We will make arrangements for them to get vaccines.”
Information relating to comorbidity was collected throughout registration and could be checked earlier than boosters are given, the director common of well being companies stated.
“And if someone didn’t mention comorbidity during registration, they will have to show proof. There are many comorbidities, but I am largely concerned with the most dangerous ones, like cancer. Those who have cancer are taking anti-cancer drugs, are getting radiation treatment and chemotherapy, and their immune systems are weak. These are the kinds of people we want to give the vaccine to.”
Bangladesh launched its COVID vaccination programme on Feb 8 of final 12 months. As of Sunday, greater than 74.48 million people have obtained the primary dose of the vaccine. Of them, 52.84 million have additionally obtained the second dose.
So far, 114,740 have obtained the booster dose.
The booster dose, or third dose of the COVID vaccine, is critical as a result of vaccine immunity to the illness diminishes over time.
Currently, Bangladesh is administering the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines for the primary and second doses. But solely the Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca doses are getting used for booster doses at the recommendation of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group, or NITAG.
