The Covid-19 vaccination of schoolchildren will start within a week, Education Minister Dipu Moni said on Wednesday.
“The registration process is underway,” she said while speaking at an event at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in Dhaka.
BSMMU Vice-Chancellor Md Sharfuddin Ahmed, University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Prof Kazi Shahidullah and Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) President Dr Mustafa Jalal Mohiuddin, among others, were present at the program.
Earlier, Health Minister Zahid Maleque had said the vaccination drive for school students aged between 12 and 17 would start by October 30.
The Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education had sought information of students of 12-17 years, including their birth certificate number, from all schools and colleges of Dhaka. It asked all schools to submit the information by October 19.
School students whose names have already been sent to the Information Ministry will be able to sign up for vaccination with their birth certificates through the Surokkha website.
After the successful completion of this campaign, it will be expanded to 20 other districts, officials said.
There are more than 10 million schoolchildren under the 12-17 age group in Bangladesh, according to officials concerned.
The health authorities have decided to administer the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to schoolchildren. For this, the government has a total of three million shots in stock at the moment.
The authorities also did a trial run of vaccinating schoolchildren by inoculating over 100 students at a school in Manikganj on October 14.
School and college students in Bangladesh returned to classes on September 11 after a prolonged closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The government had shut the educational institutions on March 17, 2020, after the country reported the first Covid-19 cases on March 8 and later the closure was extended several times.
The pandemic-related school closures in the country affected about 38 million students even though the government introduced TV-based learning programs for them.
