Around 1.74 million people have already registered for COVID-19 vaccines in Bangladesh but officials claimed that registration in rural areas remained low, reported Dhaka Tribune. Overall, close to  900,000 people have been vaccinated in the country. 

In January, the country saw poor registration response from people as they were apprehensive about the side effects of it. Thereafter, the government launched awareness campaigns which then ramped up the pace of registration for vaccines. 

Despite that, officials said, masses in rural areas still seemed less enthusiastic about vaccines. The government now planned to launch a special awareness drive targeted at rural masses after the completion of the first phase of the vaccination drive. 

Authorities aimed to vaccinate around 3.5 million people by March in the first phase. Earlier, the target was set around 6 million but later it was reduced due to the slow pace of registration. 

Lately, the vaccination pace has picked pace, with an average of 200,000 registration recorded daily. Between Saturday to Sunday last week, around 2,50,000 registrations were recorded. With this speed, officials hoped to achieve their previous target of 6 million vaccination in three months.