A medical worker administers a dose of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine to a recipient in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sept. 28, 2021. (Xinhua)
A record 6.8 million people in Bangladesh received injection of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine in a single day in a special vaccination campaign.
DHAKA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh held a special COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Tuesday with nearly 6.8 million people inoculated in a single day with China's Sinopharm vaccine, setting a new record for the country.
Professor Meerjady Sabrina Flora, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) under Bangladesh's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, told Xinhua that "We've made arrangements to give the same vaccine all over the country so that there is no confusion in the future. Sinopharm doses are being vaccinated all over the country under this campaign."
According to the DGHS, 90.12 percent of the targeted 7.5 million citizens were given vaccines during the special campaign. The single-day inoculation number was a new record for the country.
She further introduced that the vaccination drive is one of many programs marking the 75th birth anniversary of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
People line up to receive a dose of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sept. 28, 2021. (Xinhua)
During a visit to a vaccine center in Dhaka, many people were seen receiving the Sinopharm vaccine doses.
Md Yusuf Ali, a Dhaka dweller, was very happy to receive his first Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine. "I've come to know that a vaccination campaign is going on here on the occasion of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's birthday," he told Xinhua on Tuesday.
"So I received my first vaccine dose. I took the Sinopharm vaccine today," he said while many others were queuing up to receive their first vaccine doses.
A medical worker administers a dose of China's Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine to a recipient in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sept. 28, 2021.(Xinhua)
Doctor Minara Zaman, who has been working as a technical manager at the BRAC, a non-governmental development organization based in Bangladesh, said they were running this vaccine center under the supervision of the BRAC in collaboration with the Dhaka City Corporation and the Department of Health under Bangladesh's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
"Here Sinopharm vaccine doses are being given," she said, adding those who had registered or who with no registration but were more than 50 years old would be able to get vaccinated on Tuesday.
Bangladesh so far received 55 million vaccine doses including nearly 35 million doses of Sinopharm, 13.6 million doses of Oxford-Astrazeneca, 5.5 million doses of Moderna, and 1.1 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, according to local media.■
