Vaccination for thousands of Rohingya refugees has become uncertain amid the rapid spread of coronavirus at Rohingya camps.
"The UNHCR was supposed to start it long ago. I don't know exactly why they couldn't do that," foreign minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told the FE recently.
When contacted, UNHCR spokesperson Sazzad Hossain said they could not start inoculating the Rohingya due to the unavailability of vaccine.
"The vaccination was scheduled to start by the end of March 2021. But the date had to be postponed as the arrival of the COVAX vaccine remains pending and a new date is yet to be set," he told the FE.
"The Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh have been included in the national vaccination plan. Over 10-million vaccine does from COVAX have been allocated to Bangladesh which should be used to vaccinate the Rohingya among other vulnerable groups in Bangladesh."
According to the present eligibility criteria, some 130,000 out of more than 884,000 Rohingya refugees would be eligible for being vaccinated with priority.
The UN refugee agency said the Rohingya living in Cox's Bazar were fully prepared for taking the jab through elaborate community awareness programmes.
Meanwhile, the government imposed a week-long lockdown at five Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar from Friday as Covid spreads there alarmingly.
According to the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission, a total of 863 Covid-19 cases and 13 deaths have so far been reported among more than a million Rohingya at 34 camps.
The first case was reported at a camp in May 2020.
Officials said coronavirus is spreading faster this time as on Wednesday alone, 45 out of 247 Rohingya tested positive for the virus.
Bangladesh started Covid-19 vaccination drive in February this year with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, supplied by the Serum Institute of India.
But after supplying 6.0-million doses, the institute failed further delivery as India imposed ban on vaccine export due to the grave pandemic situation there.
Bangladesh entered into an agreement with Serum to procure 30-million doses of vaccine.
Amid the situation, the UNHCR in April called for concerted international action and solidarity to ensure equitable access to vaccination, including for refugees and other forcibly displaced and stateless people.
"The blatant imbalances observed in vaccine-sharing among States are counter-productive and short-sighted," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in a statement last month.
"A 'my country first' approach just can't work in a pandemic that knows no borders," he stated.
The UNHCR remains committed to the allocation principles of the COVAX initiative -- the global effort to ensure that Covid-19 vaccines reach those in greatest need, the statement added.
Bangladesh reported a decreased number of coronavirus positive cases on Saturday with an increased number of deaths.
At least 38 people lost their lives to the Covid-19 disease, known as SARS-CoV-2, while 1,028 people were tested positive for the virus till 8:00 am on the day, according to the daily update by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
A day earlier, the number of fatalities was 26 while about 1,504 people were found positive with the contagion.
In last 24 hours, some 12,230 samples were tested at 482 authorised labs - government and private - across the country.
The detection rate on the day mounted to 8.41 per cent from 8.22 per cent a day before, DGHS data showed.
So far, 5,805,407 tests have been conducted in the country while overall infection rate stood at 13.57 per cent.
Till date, 787,726 people were tested positive for the virus while about 12,348 people have lost their lives in the country since the pandemic started March last year.
In the meantime, 729,798 people have recovered from the disease to take the overall recovery rate to 92.65 per cent.
Of the 38 deceased on the day - 25 were men and 13 women - 16 were from Dhaka division, seven from Chittagong, four each from Rajshahi, Khulna, and Sylhet, two from Rangpur, and one from Barisal division.
Sixteen of the deceased patients were aged above 60, 13 between 51 and 60, two between 41 and 50, three aged between 31 and 40, two between 21 and 30, and two were aged between 11 and 20.
So far, 8,928 men (72.30 per cent) and 3,420 women (27.70 per cent) have died from Covid-19 across the country.
