Minister for Health and Family Welfare Sardar Md. Sakhawat Hossain has called for complete 100% vaccination coverage for children across both urban and rural areas, directing field-level healthcare staff to go door-to-door so that no child is left behind.
Speaking as chief guest at a workshop titled "Dissemination of Results of the Joint Independent Review of EPI and VPD Surveillance in Bangladesh 2026" held at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka on Wednesday (October 14, 2026), the Health Minister emphasized the need to bridge the vaccination disparity between cities and remote villages. He instructed field workers not to restrict their duties to fixed vaccination centers, but to actively search households and neighborhoods in hard-to-reach terrain.
Furthermore, Minister Hossain stressed maintaining strict cold chain logistics from storage to application to ensure vaccine potency, while acknowledging the long-standing support of international partners like Gavi, UNICEF, and WHO since the launch of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in 1979.
Addressing the workshop, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Affairs Dr. S. M. Ziauddin Hyder announced structural health reforms, including plans to establish dedicated primary healthcare units in every union and urban ward across the country. He revealed that the government has officially initiated the recruitment process for 100,000 'Community Health and Wellbeing Workers' to deliver door-step healthcare. The workshop was chaired by Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr. Prabhat Chandra Biswas and attended by WHO Deputy Representative Dr. Rajesh Narwal and UNICEF Acting Representative Gillian Mellsop.
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Reported by Staff Reporter • Edited by the Daily Best News desk. Send corrections to [email protected].
