Vaccination of school kids hit by mismanagement


FE REPORT | Published: November 03, 2021 08:59:34 | Updated: November 03, 2021 21:03:30


Vaccination of school kids hit by mismanagement

Mismanagement, delayed supply of vaccine and violations of Covid-19 health rules marked the second day’s vaccination for schoolchildren aged 12-17 on Tuesday.

No social distancing was observed during the special inoculation drive as a large crowd queued up for Covid shots, rather causing fears of infections.

The authorities at vaccination centres faced difficulty in dealing with the crowd.

Even the health authorities failed to supply Pfizer doses to the centres in time, forcing students and their guardians to wait for long for vaccination.

Such was the nightmare on Scholastica campus in Mirpur and on the Chattogram Grammar School (CGS) premises.

Students along with their guardians reached the centres by 9:00 am, but the authorities started vaccination after 10:30 pm due to the delayed supply of the shots.

Sirajul Islam from Kafrul area took his daughter to Scholastica's Mirpur campus for vaccination much earlier before the reporting time (9:00 am).

"It is 10:30 am now, but the vaccination is yet to start," laments the parent.

Like Mr Islam, another guardian expressed anguish over the arrangements, also citing the gathering of too many people with little regard for social distancing.

"We accompanied our children for safety in these pandemic days but we can't do anything. Who will take the responsibility if any child gets infected for mismanagement?" he said.

The CGS authorities said they installed 25 booths to run the vaccination campaign, but only 10 of the booths were in operation for jab shortages.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a total of 40,000 students are being vaxxed daily through eight dedicated schools in Dhaka city.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh has recorded three more deaths from Covid-19 and 229 fresh cases in the last 24 hours until Tuesday morning.

With the figures, the entire tally of coronavirus-related fatalities rose to 27,873 while the entire caseload reached 1,569,982, according to the DGHS.

As many as 20,031 samples were tested during the period, yielding a positivity rate of 1.14 per cent, a slight jump from the previous day's 1.08 per cent.

Simultaneously, some 211 people recovered from the disease across the country during the time, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,533,836.

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