Cholera vaccination campaign kicks off

An oral cholera vaccination campaign targeting 2.4 million residents in the Dhaka city was launched on Sunday, aiming to protect people from the outbreak of the acute diarrheal disease.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque inaugurated the country's largest-ever oral cholera vaccination programme in the auditorium of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) at the capital's Mohakhali.
The residents living in five areas of Dhaka will come under the vaccination coverage between June 26 and July 02 this year.
The Health Minister said, "We have had fantastic results in the areas where cholera vaccine trials took place in the past. We are very happy to be able to start this life-saving work."
He said the government was a bit worried about the rise in Covid-19 infections, adding many officials at the ministry and DGHS have already been affected in the fresh surge.
Coronavirus infections in the country had showed a declining trend over a period from mid-February to June 12, with average 100 cases daily.
The daily infection rate was also close to one per cent. On Sunday, the country reported 1,680 cases and two deaths with a 15 per cent infection rate.
Dr Md Anwar Hossain Howlader, secretary of the Health Services Division, Prof Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and Dr Tahmeed Ahmed, executive director of the icddr,b were also present at the event.
In Bangladesh, generally there are two types of outbreak of diarrhoea that take place during the periods from April to May and August to September while the city experienced a spike in infections from March to May this year.

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