The government rolled out a countrywide Covid vaccination drive on Saturday, with people thronging vaccine centres in their thousands.

This time people at the union level have been brought under the immunisation coverage for the first time and as many as 32 lakh people will be given their first shot in the six-day programme.

A majority of vaccine centres were overcrowded with people. The crowds were in cases several times more than the vaccine doses the centres had in stock.

Health guidelines were disregarded and experts spoke of concerns that a spread of infections was highly likely due to the mismanagement seen in the immunization campaign. 

People aged above 25 years could receive shots showing their national identity cards, without online registrations. But since there were more people than the doses, many people had to return after waiting in long queues without being vaccinated.

One of them was Bajlur Rahman who went to the ward-28 centre at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Academy at around 8:30am. More than four hours later, he was told that the centre ran out of doses.   

Another candidate, Fatema Akhter complained about her sufferings.

"I had to push through a crowd to get the jab. While trying to receive the vaccine people will be at a higher risk of getting infected in such crowded situations."  

People nearly triple the vaccine doses available thronged to immunization camps set up in Dhaka South and Dhaka North city corporation. Many stood in queues as early as 6:00pm.

Professor Sayedur Rahman, chairman of pharmacology department, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, told The Business Standard that crowds could have been avoided had teams of healthcare workers and volunteers helped register people for vaccination using their NIDs and informed them of the dates of vaccination through messages to their mobile phones.