Bangladesh: Zafrullah asks PM to take vaccine first to boost public confidence

Zafrullah Chowdhury speaks at a discussion on a ‘proper management of the COVID-19 vaccine’ at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in the capital on Friday. — New Age photo

Bangladesh Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder Zafrullah Chowdhury on Friday said that prime minister Sheikh Hasina should take the COVID-19 vaccine first at a live televised programme for the public to have trust in the vaccine.

Gonoshasthaya Kendra organised a discussion on a ‘proper management of the COVID-19 vaccine’ at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital in the capital.

Zafrullah feared that government-supplied free coronavirus vaccine doses

might be stolen for private sale at high prices if both public and private vaccination programmes continued simultaneously.

‘The government should not permit the private sale of the same company’s vaccine at the time when the government is conducting the free vaccination with the vaccine,’ he said, requesting that the government should ensure the vaccine for all.

Zafrullah said that people should not be afraid of side effects of the vaccine as it was trialled, adding that vaccination is important for every people to beat the coronavirus.

‘If I get it first in the [due] process I will take it,’ he said, exhorting the government to modify its vaccination plan by incorporating the working class people into it who keep the wheels of the economy running.

As the mass people, he argued, will not be conversant with digital registration using a mobile app, middlemen might take advantage of the situation to exploit them in getting the vaccine.

‘Distribute the vaccine based on the National Identity card,’ he advised the government.

He went on that allowing a company to import the vaccine without a tender was giving it an undue opportunity to reap a high profit at the expense of people.

He also suspected that fake vaccines might spread on the market because of their high prices unless the government could enforce a strict monitoring in this regard.

Zafrullah urged finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal to allocate a fund of half a million US dollars for COVID-19 vaccine research in the public sector.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University’s former vice-chancellor Nazrul Islam in the event said that the vaccines which were being used across the world were first-generation vaccines, which were called the fourth trial at the mass level after three trials on small samples.

‘Normally first-generation vaccines are not for use by people in general but in the case of COVID-19 vaccine we are using it for lack of time,’ he explained.

Epidemiologist Dr AM Zakir Hussain, BSMMU pharmacology department chairman Sayedur Rahman, Gonoshasthaya Samaj Vittik Medical College vice-principal Mohib Ullah Khandoker and GK press adviser Jahangir Alam Mintu were present, among others.

New Age