Battling with a surging number of COVID 19 cases in the country, Bangladesh has vaccinated over 38 lakh people in two days since it launched the special mass vaccination drive on Saturday.

On the first day of the vaccination on Saturday, 7 August, more than 31 lakh people got vaccinated across the country. Vaccination centres at Dhaka saw large crowds, many of whom had to return back after waiting for a long time as the vaccine quota at the centre was finished. In other parts of the country too, people showed eagerness to receive the vaccine. On the second day, more than 7.46 lakh people received the vaccine.

More than 32,700 vaccinators have been deployed across 4600 unions, 1054 municipalities and 433 city wards across the country to carry out the vaccination drive.

Till now, Bangladesh has administered the first dose of the COVID 19 vaccine to more than 1.4 crore people while close to 46 lakh people have received both doses of the vaccine till Sunday.

Bangladesh has received vaccines from several countries including India, China, US and Japan. Health Minister Zahid Maleque told the media in Dhaka that Bangladesh will receive another 54 lakh doses of vaccine by August 15. Approximately 34 lakh vaccines are expected to arrive under the COVAX facility and the rest of the doses would be the Chinese Sinovac vaccine.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh reported a declining trend in the positivity rate even while the number of deaths and new infections continued to remain high. As per the latest data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the sample positivity rate has declined on a daily basis since July 30 when it was recorded at 30.77 percent. The rate declined to 24.28 percent on Monday, August 9. However, 245 deaths and 11,463 new cases were reported on Monday.