CUMILLA: In Cumilla, people have suddenly lost interest in getting vaccinated against the epidemic coronavirus. Although there was interest in the beginning, most of the people in the district are not interested in getting vaccinated now.
For this reason, in the first phase, out of 0.28 million (2 lakh 88 thousand) dose vaccines received for Cumilla City Corporation and 17 upazilas of the district, more than 0.1 million (one lakh) doses are likely to remain unused.
The district administration and the district health department are concerned about the matter. Discussions and criticisms have already started among the conscious people in the whole district about the issue.
According to sources, the first dose of corona vaccine will expire on March 30. The government has already announced that the second dose will be given to the first dose recipients from April 08.
Aware people in the district say that most of the people in the village do not know about the vaccine yet. Besides, many people are not interested in going to the upazila or district headquarters to get vaccinated as there is no vaccination center near the village. Most of the illiterate people in the village go away and find it difficult to get vaccinated. In addition, the message of the need for vaccination has failed to reach the grassroots. Due to these reasons, there has been a decline in vaccination.
According to sources, a meeting of the District Corona Prevention Coordination Committee was held at the conference room of the Cumilla Deputy Commissioner's Office recently. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Kamrul Hasan and the chief guest was Cumilla Sadar MP, AKM Bahauddin Bahar. At the meeting, Cumilla District Civil Surgeon Mir Mubarak Hossain presented a picture of district corona vaccination. Then the issue came up for discussion.
On the first day of vaccination in Cumilla, 1,091 people were vaccinated in the entire district. A week later, that number exceeded six thousand on average. However, recently that number of recipients has come down from one and a half to two thousand.
At the meeting, Civil Surgeon Mir Mubarak Hossain said that on January 31, 0.28 million (2 lakh 88 thousand) doses of vaccines were received in the first phase for Cumilla district.
Like all over the country, the vaccination programme through registration started from January 07. Already 0.2 million (2 lakh) people have registered. A total of 0.15 million (1 lakh 56 thousand) people have been vaccinated. A total of 0.13 million (1 lakh 32 thousand) vaccines are still unused. The first phase of vaccination expires on March 30.
Given the current situation, it is expected that 30,000 more vaccines could be administered during this time. But more than 0.1 million (1 lakh) vaccines will remain unused. At the end of the first phase, unused vaccines may have to be returned to the government.
Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Kamrul Hasan said no vaccine would be returned. If necessary, our people have to go to the village to get the people vaccinated. The Prime Minister has bought each vaccine for four dollars. These did not come for free. Many developed countries have not yet received adequate corona vaccines. Moreover, the corona ticker has no side effects. Everyone should get vaccinated on time. People need to be interested in getting vaccinated.
At one stage, the deputy commissioner wanted to know from the civil surgeon whether it is possible to provide the remaining 0.13 million (1 lakh 32 thousand) vaccines within the stipulated time.
The Civil Surgeon later said, "We will do our utmost to implement this initiative.
Asked about this, Cumilla Deputy Civil Surgeon and Focal Person for Corona Dr. Shahadat Hossain said, "After the decision of the meeting, our health department workers have started going to the village to vaccinate people."
"Muradnagar and Manoharganj upazilas of the district were vaccinated on Monday. This activity will start in 17 upazilas of the district in 2/1 days. Our health department staff is much more sincere about this.. It is their extra responsibility, yet they are working relentlessly. They are working even on holidays. We have already started getting the results, the number of vaccine recipients was below two thousand till last Saturday. Now that number is about five thousand.
