Bangladesh close to reaching Covid herd immunity threshold

Doctors and health workers engaged to fight Covid-19

Bangladesh, Oct. 10 -- Even though Bangladesh logged 15,61,463 Covid-19 cases as of Friday, experts believe around 70 percent population of the country may have contracted the virus and developed natural antibodies.

Some experts think that the country is close to reaching the herd immunity threshold while some others say a comprehensive serosurveillance report is necessary to reach a conclusion over it.

They all, however, viewed that it is necessary to inoculate around 70-80 percent of people of the country to attain herd protection against the Coronavirus as any virulent new variant like Delta can emerge and dodge people's natural immune protection.

Herd immunity is a concept based on the body's immune resistance to the spread of a deadly disease (bacterial or viral infection) and it can be obtained in two ways -- naturally through infections of the majority of the population and artificially through vaccinating around 80 percent of the population of a country.

Official data on infection, vaccination

As per the data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Bangladesh reported 15,61,463 cases till Friday while the positivity rate was 2.77. The daily-case positivity rate in the country remained below 5 percent for over last two weeks.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a total of 35,829,418 people received the first dose of vaccines while 17,795,120 ones both doses as of October 7. The country has so far collected 64,568,420 doses AstraZeneca , Pfizer, Moderna and Sinopharm vaccines.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Saturday said around five crore people have already been vaccinated while 50 percent will be brought under the vaccination by December next.

He said they also have a plan to vaccinate 70-80 percent people of the country by March next year.

Debate over antibody, herd immunity

Based on some studies on samples collected from both symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid positive individuals, Ramon Magsaysay Award-winning Bangladeshi scientist Dr Firdausi Qadri said 60-70 percent people of Bangladesh have gained some types of antibodies against Covid-19. - UNB