The government will halt administrating the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from Monday.

Directorate General of Health Services spokesperson Prof Dr Robed Amin told reporters on Sunday and added that the administration of the second dose will start from Thursday. 

But, he said, their vaccination program will continue during the weeklong nationwide lockdown, which is set to start from Monday.

A total of 5,452,634 people -- 3,386,353 men and 2,066,281 women -- have been vaccinated in the country so far by taking part in the national vaccination program that started on February 8.

Of them, 937 have shown side effects after vaccination.

With Covid-19 cases and deaths rising, Bangladesh is all set to go into the weeklong lockdown from Monday, the second since the pandemic broke out in the country in March last year.

The country has been logging over 5,000 cases and 50 deaths from the deadly virus in the past few days.

On Saturday, Bangladesh reported 5,683 new Covid-19 cases and 58 new deaths, making the tally at 630,277 and death toll at 9,213, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

More than 637 million vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, equal to 8.3 doses for every 100 people, according to the New York Times.