Vaccine recipients feeling fine

Five front-line fighters received the Covid-19 vaccine in the virtual presence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as the countrywide vaccination programme was launched on Wednesday.

After taking the jab, they expressed their satisfaction and happiness as they have become the first persons in the country to be vaccinated.

They also chanted ‘Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu’ slogan while expressing the feelings.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination programme, which will formally begin on February 7 all over the country, through videoconferencing from her official residence Ganobhaban at 4:05pm.

Runu Veronica Costa, a senior staff nurse of Kurmitola General Hospital, first received the vaccine at the inauguration programme at 4:50 pm.

The four others, who received the vaccine in the remote presence of the prime minister, are Dr Ahmed Lutful Moben of the Medicine department of Kurmitola General Hospital, Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Brig Gen M Imran Hamid of Bangladesh Army and Md Didarul Islam, a member of traffic police.

Before she was given the vaccine, when the prime minister asked her whether she was afraid of receiving the jab as the first person in Bangladesh, the nurse replied in the negative.

"You’re very brave," the premier said lauding her for mustering courage to take the very first dose of the vaccine in the country.

While talking to reporters after the inauguration programme, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque said all the five front line fighters who received the vaccine first were feeling fine. “We came to know after talking to them that all of them are fine. They’re not feeling any complication and problem,” he said.

Twenty-one more people, including doctors, nurses, journalists, Armed Forces members and government officials, received the Covid-19 vaccine on the first day.

They are Md Mazedul Islam, Shanjida Sultana, Md Abdul Halim, Md Enamul Hasan, Md Hamza, Shammi Akhter, Dr Al Mamun Shahriar Sarkar, Dr Farida Yasmin, Dr Afroza Jahin, Dr Arup Ratan Chowdhury, Prof Dr Abdul Kader Khan, Maj Gen Mahbubur Rahman, Md Abdur Rahim, Kazi Jasim Uddin, Mosharraf Hossain, Masud Rayhan Polash, Md Al-Masum Molla, Amirul Momenin, Munni Khatun, Md Ashiful Islam, Dewan Hemayet Hossain.