Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam on Monday said a large consignment of COVID-19 vaccines is likely to arrive in the country in the first week of next month.

"I want to give you a good news . . . we're likely to get a large quantity of COVID-19 vaccines in the first week of next month," he said.

Khurshid was speaking as special guest at the publication ceremony of "Report on Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics-2020" held at the auditorium of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in the capital today.

Planning Minister MA Mannan spoke at the function as the chief guest.

Statistics and Informatics Division Secretary Mohammad Yamin Chowdhury presided over the function while Director General of BBS Md Tajul Islam gave the address of welcome.

BBS joint director AKM Ashraful Haque, who is also the project director of Monitoring of the Situation of Vital Statistics of Bangladesh (MSVSB), 3rd phase, revealed the survey findings.

The DG of DGHS said that in line with the directives from the Prime Minister, priority in vaccination would be given to those workers who would go abroad side by side those who are at high risk for various diseases and complications would be given preference.

He said with the availability of possible vaccines, it would be possible to make a big stride forward to vaccinate a big portion of people as the government is aiming to ensuring health safety through vaccinating at least 80 percent of the people.

Khurshid said according to the directives from the Premier, preference in giving vaccines would also be given to the critical patients since the death rate from COVID-19 among those who are suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and other diseases is high.

"We want to vaccinate such a group of people up to the village level and it is the directive from the Prime Minister," he added.

Mentioning about the necessary steps to increase the institutional capacity of the heath sector, the Director General said that the Ministry of Health has attained such capacity of giving at least one crore doses of vaccines per day.