When it comes to mass immunization against COVID-19, our country is planning to purchase the vaccine at low price or free via COVAX facility for 20 percent of the country’s population.

Meanwhile, a meeting between the Ministry of Health and Sports and the World Bank yesterday over US$ 60 million ODA loan from the World Bank for procurement of vaccine comes as a tremendous news.

It reflects that we will see a first batch of immunization soon. The more people who receive the vaccine, the more protected everybody will be. The time comes to consider which groups are vulnerable for infection and which groups are deserved priority for vaccination.

It should be noted that over 2,000 have died from the novel coronavirus so far in 95,000 cases.

As the Union Government is taking the steps to protect the most vulnerable people from the agonies of COVID-19, all hands from the governmental and private sectors should be on deck to effectively organize a national vaccination programme on an unprecedented scale.

Success of a national vaccination programme will require a rigorous command of logistics, coordination between governmental departments concerned, clear and effective communication with the public and a sustained culture of transparency and professionalism. Some vaccines are needed to be kept at minus 70 degrees C.

We are confident that the experiences of the Ministry of Health and Sports and its health workers and experts in immunization programmes would make the coming national immunization programme against COVID-19 a success.

We must prepare now for day one of the vaccine’s availability through a comprehensive national strategy for procurement, logistics, the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine and immunization.

It could take a considerable amount of time to mass produce the vaccine and distribute it around the world.

The expectation is that Covid-19 vaccines will be given to those in health and service occupations first, as well as the most vulnerable members of society, before it’s rolled out to the rest of the population.

And, even with a vaccine, it will take time for the global and our economy to get back to pre-crisis levels.

Hence, before being vaccinated against the coronavirus, we need to be very vigilant during this period.

GNLM