Staff Correspondent: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed to start vaccination drives at the ward and union levels, says Health Minister Zahid Maleque.
She has also instructed to boost efforts to bring the elderly population under inoculation program as the number of infected and death is higher among them, the minister told the media after the weekly Cabinet meeting on Monday.
The premier also stressed the need to enforce the ongoing strict restrictions, he added.
The government has made the arrangements to procure a total of 210 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to inoculate 140 million people - about 80% of the population, said Maleque.
There will be 30 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccine each, 10 million Sputnik-V, 70 million Johnson & Johnson, and 68 million doses of different vaccines through the Covax scheme, including Pfizer and Moderna, according to him.
The health minister also said that every week, roughly 200 tons of oxygen will be made accessible for Covid-19 patients. Moreover, some 4,000 doctors and nurses will be recruited soon without police verification and viva voce.
Meanwhile, vaccines will be given to the family members of frontliners, who are at least 18 years old, he added.
On Saturday, Maleque said the government will initiate measures to allow vaccination of the elderly people in rural areas with online vaccination. "They will get the jabs by just producing the national ID cards. It will be updated in the database later."
Bangladesh started the nationwide vaccination program on February 7. Since then, more the 11.8 million doses of four types of vaccines have been administered, including the first and second shots. Meanwhile, Bangladesh recorded 247 novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) deaths and 15,192 positive cases in the past 24 hours, the highest number in a single day in terms of both fatality and infection since the pandemic began.
"The country reported 29.82 percent Covid-19 positive cases as 50,952 samples were tested in the past 24 hours while it registered 8,822 positive cases on June 30, the second highest in a day, " Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in its routine daily statement.
Bangladesh recorded 231 novel coronavirus (Covid-19) deaths, second highest number in a single day on July 19 while it logged 13,768 fresh cases during the same period, the second highest in a day, on July 12.
The official tally showed the virus killed 19,521 people and infected 11,79,827 so far, it added.
The recovery count rose to 10,09,975 after another 11,052 patients were discharged from the hospitals during the past one day.
The DGHS statistics showed of the people infected from the beginning 85.60 percent recovered, while 1.65 percent died.