The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday requested the Ministry of Health to make arrangements for vaccination of expatriate students through the Surokkha app. The ministry has also mentioned that the date of vaccination of these students going abroad can be brought forward.
The High Court on July 4 sought to know the steps taken to vaccinate students who want to go abroad for higher education and their priority in the Surokkha app. Knowing this, the state was asked to inform. A single bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim sought the information from the state.
Overseas students and their parents also thronged the ministry last Wednesday to address the issue of vaccination. A directive was issued a few days ago to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the vaccination of students. However, it was later withdrawn. But as the directive spread through social media including Facebook, the crowd at the Foreign Office in Corona was growing.
“There are two things to look for when it comes to vaccinating expatriate students,” the foreign secretary told the media. China’s guidelines state that those who go to study in that country must take the Sinopharm vaccine. Bangladesh has a policy agreement in this regard.
He said “We also have the Chinese vaccine,”. Again, many western countries, including the United States, Canada or Europe, have not approved the Sinopharm vaccine. Students going to all those countries will have to be vaccinated with pfizer and Moderna.
In response to a question, the Foreign Secretary said that the issue has been mentioned so that these students can be vaccinated through the security app. Apart from that, the Ministry of Health has also been requested to ensure that the students who have completed all the formalities of going abroad get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Asked how many students are waiting to go to Western countries, the foreign secretary said the exact number was not yet clear. However, the idea is that this number may be one to two thousand.
Thousands of students are waiting for the vaccine after completing all the preparations to go to western countries including America, Europe and Canada.
