Health Minister Zahid Maleque has told officials to ensure that no one is left out of the COVID-19 vaccination drive if they cannot access the internet, reports bdnews24.com.
But they have not yet determined how and from when the registration at vaccination centres will begin.
After taking the jab in Dhaka following the inauguration of the nationwide drive on Sunday, the health minister said his ministry instructed the local authorities to help the people in remote areas to register and get the vaccine at the centres.
The chairmen of union and upazila councils along with the deputy commissioners, civil surgeons and police officers can work on this, Maleque told reporters at Sheikh Russel National Gastroliver Institute and Hospital.
He said 70 per cent of the people live in rural areas and so the officials must ensure than no one returns home in remote areas without getting their doses after visiting the centres.
He suggested the health workers first administer the doses and then register the participants in these cases.
But the Directorate General of Health Services or DGHS is not eager to launch the system now considering the complexities in the process of giving all two doses of the vaccine in a specific period, said Meerjady Sabrina Flora, an additional director general of health services.
Bangladesh is using the Oxford Unversity-AstraZeneca vaccine for the mass immunisation. A booster is required to be given after four to 12 weeks from the first shot of the vaccine.
The government has opened a web application at www.surokkha.gov.bd for the people to register for their doses.
The registration will make it easy for the DGHS to follow up on the receivers of the vaccine, said Sabrina Flora,
Decisions on the process to register the people at the centres will be taken after giving the doses to the more than 350,000 people who have registered online, she added.
Alauddin Al Azad, deputy director of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said they helped a person with disability to register at their vaccination centre before giving him the dose.
He said freedom fighters and people with disabilities can register at the centre, but others must register themselves first for the vaccine.
