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another six crore doses of Sinopharm in August.

Besides, the country got around one crore doses of different brands from Covax in phases.

Apart from this, the government started administering Pfizer vaccines, received as donation under Covax arrangements, mostly among students and Middle East-bound migrant workers.

As the supply became smooth, the campaign got some momentum -- the government reduced the age bar from 55 years to 40 and ensured better management. Soon the age bar was lowered from 40 to 18 years in efforts to boost the vaccination rate and open the long-closed education institutions.

To ramp up vaccination, the government also launched several special drives to bring more people under the coverage, especially for people living in rural areas with limited access to online registration. The registration through Surokkha app started on January 26.

There were some complaints of irregularities and sufferings in special drives. But apart from that, regular vaccination campaigns through over 1,000 centres across the country were generally trouble-free.

Experts said tireless efforts from health professionals and a strong setup of Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) helped a better vaccine management despite the ill-equipped public health facilities overburdened with influx of Covid-19 patients.

Bangladesh, however, failed to make any considerable progress in vaccine production.

The government struck a trilateral agreement for bottling, labelling and dispensing China’s Sinopharm vaccine in August. Under the deal, Bangladesh’s Incepta Vaccines Ltd is expected to supply five million doses of Covid vaccines a month from its plant in Savar, but the production is yet to start.

For the last few months, the country has seen a gradual decline in Covid deaths and infections after the Delta variant, detected in May, ravaged the country in June and July.

But the detection of the Omicron variant in late November raised alarm bells. The World Health Organisation has labelled Omicron as a variant of concern.

Experts say vaccination, which curbs hospitalisation and deaths, is key to tackle coronavirus, along with maintaining health guidelines.

Prof Be-Nazir Ahmed, a public health expert and former director of DGHS, said Bangladesh started well in vaccination but slipped due to dependency on a single source of vaccine.

“But Bangladesh recovered from that slip very well in managing vaccines and in inoculation. But still the vaccination coverage is not at the expected level, especially when we are a champion in vaccinating people.”

Dr Shah Ali Akbar Ashrafi, chief of health Information Unit of DGHS, said it was not easy to work with a completely digital vaccine management system as adult education was a challenging process.

“We needed to teach statisticians from 492 upazila health complexes and 64 district offices quickly. We needed to hire data assistants right away. We used the online platform Zoom to train many healthcare workers in Surokkha.

“Management Information System had to go through a critical period at the start. All of the officers, data assistants, and support staff were working round the clock to resolve the issues.”