Now as Bangladesh is painfully short on vaccine, he is worried whether and when he will be fully vaccinated.

Many others, mostly who received the first dose by the end of March, are anxious about their second dose.

The Directorate General of Health Services or DGHS needs to find over 1.5 million jabs to complete the second dosing.

The government launched the mass inoculation programme on Feb 7 with University of Oxford:AstraZeneca vaccine COVISHIELD, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

Bangladesh has received 10.2 million doses of COVISHIELD so far, including 3.2 million doses as gift. The first and second doses of the vaccine are spaced eight weeks apart. 

Bangladesh later halted administering the first doses to save the shots for the second dosing.

Amid the crisis, Health Minister Zahid Maleque appears to leave it to “fate”.

“We’re contacting other countries as well as India, wherever there are stocks of the

Oxford vaccine, through the embassies. We’re sending letters. We will get the doses quickly if we are fortunate,” he said.        

The government has continued “pressuring” India for the necessary doses, according to him.

“We have one more month. Let’s see if we can bring the vaccine by this time in this period,” said Maleque. 

Bangladesh signed a deal with Serum for 30 million doses, with five million doses per month.

The government has administered over 9.3 million doses, including around 5.82 million first ones, until Sunday and has more than 883,000 jabs in hand.

Once the rest of the shots are used for the second dosing, around 1.54 million people will still be in need of their second jabs.

Officials say around 1 percent shots are wasted during transportation or vaccination, which means the total stock will decrease by over 100,000 doses.

Bangladesh has now contacted China and Russia for their vaccines, but officials said the doses are not arriving anytime soon.

China, however, has despatched 500,000 doses of its Sinopharm vaccine as gift for Bangladesh.

With these efforts, another question has been raised – can a different vaccine be used for second dosing?

Dr Mohammad Robed Amin, a line director at the DGHS, said a committee was still working on the issue.

Public health expert Dr Mushtuq Husain, who advises the government on COVID-related issues, is not excited about the idea of mixing the doses.

“It is still not proved in research whether the second dose of one company’s vaccine is effective after the first dose from another company is injected. Studies on the matter are still ongoing.” 

The World Health Organization has also recommended using the same vaccine for both doses.

Another question over the timing of the second dose has aroused. 

According to the WHO, the AstraZeneca vaccine can be given with a gap of eight to 12 weeks between the two doses.

So, Dr Robed Amin says, the citizens who are yet to get the second dose “do not need to worry now” because they will have four more weeks after the end of the given dates for the second shot.

And Dr Mushtuq sees no reason to give up hope of getting necessary AstraZeneca shots.

Even if Bangladesh gets the doses after a delay, the citizens needing the second dose can get it a month after the final deadline ends because a three-month gap can be allowed for the vaccine, he said.