Minister orders door-to-door child vaccination
Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain directed field-level health workers to conduct door-to-door visits to ensure every child in rural and urban areas, including remote communities, receives vaccinations against preventable diseases.
The government is seeking to close gaps in child vaccination coverage by taking immunisation services directly to households and hard-to-reach communities, Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain said on Wednesday.
Addressing a workshop titled “Joint Independent Review 2026 of EPI and VPD Surveillance in Bangladesh: Dissemination of Findings” at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka, the minister instructed field-level health workers to identify eligible children and bring them under the vaccination programme.
He said health workers should not remain confined to designated vaccination centres but should visit every household and neighbourhood to ensure no child was left out.
“Field-level workers should remain confined to designated vaccination centres. They have to go door-to-door, identify eligible children and bring them under vaccination coverage. Hundred percent vaccination must be ensured by taking vaccines to every child in remote and hard-to-reach areas,” he said.
Sakhawat stressed the need to eliminate disparities in vaccination coverage between rural and urban areas, emphasising that every child should have access to immunisation services.
He also directed the authorities to maintain vaccine quality throughout the process, from supply to administration, and regularly monitor compliance with cold-chain requirements.
“From supply to administration, we have to ensure the quality of vaccines,” he said, stressing the importance of regularly assessing vaccine effectiveness and the immunity they provide.
The minister said vaccination programmes remained essential to protecting future generations from infectious diseases and pandemics.
He recalled that Bangladesh’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), launched in 1979, had played an important role in protecting children against various deadly diseases.
Sakhawat also acknowledged the contributions of international partners, including Gavi, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), to the country’s immunisation programme.
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Health Affairs SM Ziauddin Hyder, speaking as the special guest, said the government was undertaking health sector reforms to ensure quality healthcare for everyone, from marginalised communities to urban residents.
He said plans included establishing separate primary healthcare units in every union and every ward of cities across the country.
Ziauddin also said the government had initiated the process of recruiting an additional 100,000 Community Health and Wellbeing Workers to bring healthcare services to people’s doorsteps.
“Evaluation of the outcomes of the immunisation programme and disease surveillance will play an important role in improving the overall quality of healthcare and ensuring accountability,” he said.
Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Professor Dr Pravath Chandra Biswas, chaired the workshop.
WHO Bangladesh Deputy Representative Rajesh Narwal, UNICEF Bangladesh Representative ad interim Gillian Mellsop and other officials concerned attended the event.
