The government has started administering the Moderna Covid vaccine to the foreign-bound workers in vaccination centres in 12 city areas on Wednesday as there was hardly any stock of Pfizer vaccine for the potential first dose recipients, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

The DGHS authorities said that several hundred registrants for the Covid vaccine staged a demonstration on Wednesday at a number of vaccination centres including Shaheed Suhrawardi Medical College and Hospital demanding Pfizer vaccine after authorities stopped administering the vaccine in some centres.

‘We request the foreign-bound workers to receive Moderna vaccine in vaccination centres in 12 city areas as we do not have adequate stock to ensure them the first jab of the Pfizer vaccine,’ DGHS director Professor M Shamsul Haque said in an online briefing on Wednesday.

Many registrants went to the sections of the centres after getting text messages from the authorities where the date and name of the centre were mentioned while a good number of the people rushed to receive the jab after receiving the OTP code only.

People with only OTP code too staged demonstrations as the centre authorities declined to administer the vaccine to them.

Several vaccine recipients alleged that there were irregularities at the SSMCH as some middlemen emerged at the centre and demanded money promising the administering of the Pfizer vaccine.

Directorate General of Health Services officials said that they were aware of the trouble created by sections of people but could not help them to get the vaccine of their choice without maintaining stock for the potential second dose recipients.

‘Administering Pfizer as the first dose is no longer possible,’ Haque said, adding that they require preserving adequate doses of the Pfizer vaccine to administer the second dose to the recipients of the first dose of the same vaccine.

The stock of the Pfizer vaccine for the first dose might end in all vaccination centres in a day or two, he said.  

Like the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccine is also approved by the World Health Organisation as well as most of the countries including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for potential travellers, said the DGHS official.

The Saudi authorities approved four vaccines so far, which are Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, he said with reference to Saudi media.

No vaccine will be administered without proper registration, a text message sent from the centres and a printed vaccine card, Haque added.

Professor Robed Amin, another DGHS director, said that the efficacy of all WHO-approved vaccines is almost the same.

At least 8,000 foreign-bound Bangladeshi students expressed their intent to get the Covid vaccine in the first 24 hours after the opening of the registration with the foreign ministry on Tuesday as a part of the two-step registration for vaccination, according to the ministry officials.

Most of the potential student vaccine recipients are expected to travel to China, Canada, the US and some European countries for joining classes at their respective educational institutions.

The students also required to register with the surokkha app/website for vaccination after three working days of sending their documents and filling up a prescribed Google form with the foreign ministry.

A total of 2,89,047 people registered in 24 hours till 2.30pm on Wednesday across the country raising the total registrants to about 99 lakh since the launch of the campaign in February, according to the DGHS.

Some 1,38,167 doses of vaccines were administered across the country in 24 hours till 2.30pm on Wednesday.

In Chattogram, there was a rush for the first dose at Covid vaccination centres as the government reduced the age of potential recipients to 35 years from 40 years.

Several hundred people queued up for receiving vaccines at Chattogram Medical College Hospital on Wednesday morning.

Rezaul Karim, a resident of the Halishahar area, told New Age that he got the vaccine after waiting for one and a half hours.

A total of 13,345 people were vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine and 7,861 people were vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday, according to the district civil surgeon.

The country’s first-dose inoculation was halted on April 26 due to a shortage of vaccine doses as the Serum Institute of India suspended the supply of its Covishield vaccine to Bangladesh.

In an effort to diversify Covid vaccine procurement sources, the Bangladesh government