PM Hasina: Students aged 12 or up will be vaccinated

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said the government has planned to gradually bring students aged 12 and above under the vaccination coverage.

The Leader of the House said this while replying to a tabled question from Jatiya Party MP Rustum Ali Faraji during the prime minister's question-answer session in the parliament.

She said the government has a plan to vaccinate 80% of the country’s population.

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To bring 50% of the people under vaccination coverage by December 2021, the government is taking measures as per the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), she told the House.

To make that happen, Hasina said, the government will provide vaccine jabs for the students aged 12 or above.

She mentioned that the physically challenged people will be brought under the vaccination coverage through car provided by the respective ministry to bring them under the social safety-net coverage.

The prime minister said workers will also get vaccine shots on a priority basis as measures have been taken to collect 246,513,660 vaccine doses.

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Under these measures, she said, some 44,431,880 vaccine jabs have been collected through bilateral agreements. Steps have been taken so that 10 million or more doses of vaccines could be collected every month, she added.

Hasina said some 60 million vaccine jabs -- 20 million every month -- will come from Sinopharm from October to December.

She hoped that it would be possible to overcome the pandemic with cooperation from all governments.

“The situation will become normal again if everybody follows health guidelines strictly apart from getting vaccinated,” she said.