Only booster dose from December

A wake-up call for those who are yet to receive their first or second Covid shots -- from December, only the booster dose will be administered in Bangladesh, report agencies.
"The first or the second dose of Covid vaccines will not be available in Bangladesh after November, as by then the existing stock will expire. Also, the possibility of purchasing more vaccines is little," Shamsul Haque, member secretary of the vaccine management committee of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.
"From August, we will start the campaign to vaccinate children aged between five and 11 years against Covid-19," he added.
The high-ranking DGHS official said the booster dose campaign would continue across the country, "but people are still showing reluctance to get vaccinated".
According to the directorate, a significant number of people, 70 per cent, who have died of Covid so far in the country were not vaccinated against the disease.
Bangladesh recorded 621 cases of COVID-19 in a day, taking the overall tally of infections to 2,002,944. The death toll from the disease climbed by four in 24 hours to 29,275, according to the latest government data released on Tuesday.
As many as 10,119 samples were tested across the country, for a positivity rate of 6.14 per cent.
Among the eight divisions, Dhaka logged the highest number of cases, with 354 infections.
Another 1,132 people recovered from the illness nationwide, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1,938,372.
Globally the overall number of Covid cases has now surged past 576 million amid a rise in new infections in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 576,192,266 and the death toll reached 6,405,163 on Tuesday morning.