Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jul;36(4):1014-1029.
doi: 10.1002/hpm.3156. Epub 2021 Mar 25.

Decreasing transmission and initiation of countrywide vaccination: Key challenges for future management of COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

Md Maruf Ahmed Molla  1 , Jannat Ara Disha  2 , Mahmuda Yeasmin  1 , Asish Kumar Ghosh  3 , Tasnim Nafisa  1
Affiliations

Decreasing transmission and initiation of countrywide vaccination: Key challenges for future management of COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

Md Maruf Ahmed Molla et al. Int J Health Plann Manage. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

With a fragile healthcare system, Bangladesh, much like other countries in South East Asia, struggled during the early days of COVID-19 pandemic. In following months several encouraging initiatives were undertaken including nationwide lockdown, maintaining social distancing and setting up COVID-19 dedicated laboratories and hospitals. Despite fear of an escalation in COVID-19 transmission during the winter months like their European counterparts, fortunately infection rates subsided and Bangladesh came out largely unharmed. But the next phase of COVID-19 pandemic management that includes viral transmission suppression and conduction of nationwide immunization program require several urgent steps from government of Bangladesh (GoB) and relevant stakeholders. This qualitative research piece discussed about issues including an urgent need to enhance critical care facilities around the country, especially in peripheral districts; ramping up COVID-19 testing at existing laboratories in view of diagnosing each case, and ensuring vaccines for the vulnerable populations in the country. Furthermore, the researchers shed light on other issues including a need to reinforce a struggling healthcare workforce, encouraging people to take vaccine, proper maintenance of social distancing regulations, routine epidemiological surveillance, management of environment and biomedical waste and undertaking a holistic approach to combat the pandemic and its environmental and financial consequences.

Keywords: Bangladesh; COVID-19; ICU; PCR; SARS-CoV-2; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Bi‐weekly COVID‐19 cases per million people in Bangladesh from March 2020 to January 2021
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Number of critical care beds per 100,000 population in 10 low and low‐middle income countries
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Daily COVID‐19 tests performed per 1000 population in countries with comparable financial means. The figures illustrated here are given as a rolling 7‐day average
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
A comparative analysis of physicians, nurses and midwives per 1000 people among neighbouring countries
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
A graphical model showing the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic—from its inception to current scenario to future management strategies., SARS‐CoV‐2, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A novel Coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(8):727‐733. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Coronavirus Cases. Worldometer.Info. http://worldometer.info/coronavirus/#countries. Updated February 15, 2021. Accessed February 15, 2021.
    1. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) Bangladesh. Corona.gov.Bd. http://corona.gov.bd/press‐release. Updated February 15, 2021. Accessed February 15, 2021.
    1. Paul R. Bangladesh Extends School Shutdown over Second COVID‐19 Wave. Reuters; 2021. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/ama_style/electronic_so.... Published November 12, 2020. Accessed February 15.
    1. Shammi M, Bodrud‐Doza M, Islam A, et al. COVID‐19 pandemic, socioeconomic crisis and human stress in resource‐limited settings: a case from Bangladesh. Heliyon. 2020;6(5):e04063. 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04063 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances