160 mln Chinese doses administered as Bangladesh strengthens fight against COVID-19

DHAKA, July 20 (Xinhua) -- The Bangladeshi government decided on Wednesday to extend the ongoing special campaign to administer the second dose and booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine by another day to July 21.

As part of the government's all-out efforts to rein in the fresh spike of the pandemic, Bangladeshi health authorities earlier held a day-long countrywide mass vaccination campaign on Tuesday with a view to vaccinating 7.5 million people with the second and booster doses.

More than 285 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have so far been administered in the country, and more than half of the administered vaccines were China's Sinopharm.

According to a statement from the government's Management Information System of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a total of 285,882,959 vaccine doses, including 159,514,745 Chinese vaccine doses, had been administered across Bangladesh as of Tuesday.

Bangladesh has been using COVID-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Moderna, Pfizer, Sinovac, and Johnson and Johnson.

Shamsul Haque, member secretary of the National Covid-19 Vaccine Management Task Force, said the vaccination efforts will continue as long as there are people eligible for inoculation.

People from all walks of life, especially the less affluent section of the society, have made up the majority of the second dose vaccine recipients on Wednesday, and most of them received Sinovac and Sinopharms vaccine as their second doses.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque earlier said the campaign is aimed at containing the recent spike in infection rates.

People aged 18 and above, who have received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccines at least four months earlier, were allowed to receive a booster jab during this special campaign.

Also, those who took the first dose at least 28 days ago got their second jab during the campaign.

According to the minister, Bangladesh currently has a stock of around 27.8 million shots of five types of COVID-19 vaccines including China's Sinopharm and Sinovac.

Bangladesh began its COVID-19 vaccination drive in January last year to contain the pandemic.

Bangladesh recorded 1,104 new cases of COVID-19 and one death on Wednesday, bringing the total tally to 1,999,395 with 29,250 deaths, the DGHS said.