Another haphazardly arranged vaccination drive

The government's vaccination programme for schoolchildren, which has been underway since the first of this month, is beset by a number of difficulties. According to a report in this daily on Wednesday, long queues, mismanagement at the vaccine centres and multiple difficulties in the registration process have dampened the excitement surrounding the initiative to inoculate schoolchildren aged 12-17 years. This, unfortunately, shows that the authorities have not learned any lessons from previous nationwide vaccination drives that were mired with inefficiencies as a result of poor planning and lack of proper oversight.

It is most disappointing that the government is yet to device a system to make its inoculation programmes efficient and easy for those who are hoping to get vaccinated. In the absence of such a system, students of various schools have had to wait for hours on end to get their vaccines, according to the report. Some students were even seen struggling to just get into the school premises. The chaos inside and outside of the schools and the massive gatherings of students and their guardians is only exposing them to unnecessary risks of contracting the virus. And this has, so far, been a staple of all of the government's vaccination drives.

The report revealed that some of the gatherings were happening because not all the vaccination booths were functional. The number of school students in Dhaka is huge. The government should have taken this into account and set up a substantial number of vaccination centres. That there are currently only a handful of vaccination centres available for school children, where some of the booths are not even operating, is simply unacceptable. Parents also complained at the lack of assistance they received from school authorities when it came to registering their children for vaccination. Moreover, there has been a huge mess-up when it comes to registering with the Surokkha app, as those having a 16-digit birth certificate have been unable to register at all.

These are all problems that should have been sorted out a long time ago. After so many rounds of government vaccination drives, there is no excuse for these hurdles. The lack of focus on the part of the authorities to ensure that the inoculation of school children goes smoothly is truly perplexing. Therefore, we call on the authorities to immediately address these issues once and for all, as otherwise, the current vaccination drive of school children, like many before it, might again fail to deliver the desired results. And that is something we can ill-afford at this stage.