DHAKA, Sept. 26 — Children’s vaccination continued under a roadside tarpaulin a day after the Radda MCH-FP Center in Mirpur-1 was vandalized and demolished. Officials of the center kept the program running by setting up temporary tables and chairs outside the main gate.
Routine vaccines, including measles shots for children aged six months to five years, began outside the center at 10 a.m. Saturday.
A visit to the Radda MCH-FP Center at noon found the vaccination program under way. Officials sat with vaccination materials under a banner at the center gate. Mothers arrived with children of different ages, and vaccines were administered there. The arrangement caused hardship for children, mothers and health workers.
One mother who brought her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Halima for vaccination said she had brought her daughter because the center was close to home and she had used it before.
Another woman, Ishrat, said her daughter was scheduled to receive a vaccine next month. She said the previous vaccine had also been given at Radda, so she had come to ask whether vaccination would continue there. Staff told her it would.
Ayesha Begum, who brought her three-month-old daughter for vaccination, said vaccines had been given indoors on the previous visit. This time, she said, they had to stand outside. The child was suffering in the heat and crying, she said.
Officials of the Radda center said regular vaccines, including measles vaccines, were being given to children aged six months to five years under the government’s measles control program. The program began at 9 a.m. and was scheduled to continue until 4 p.m. About 120 children had been vaccinated by 1:30 p.m.
Nasrin Akhter, executive director of the Radda MCH-FP Center, said the center had started the measles vaccination program under government instructions. She said staff were trying to keep services running in difficult conditions so children nearby would not face problems receiving vaccines.
Akhter said many children were expected, so officials had made a temporary arrangement in an open space. Vaccination was continuing, but other health services could not be provided as before for now, she said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report