Staff Reporter :
Two more persons were detected as coronavirus infecting patients in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours, taking the number of the confirmed cases to 56, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said it on Thursday.
“The new infected persons are males. One is 30-40 year old and the other is between 70 and 80. We are conducting investigation to find out how did they get infected,” said Dr Md. Habibur Rahman, Director of Management Information System of DGHS while addressing a press briefing in Dhaka.
A total of 78 people are kept in isolation currently. Samples from 141 persons were tested in the last 24 hours, the MIS Director added. At the same time the MIS Director said that the DGHS will test at least 1000 samples of suspected coronavirus infected persons across the country by today to assess the situation.
He said, “We are trying to increase the number of tests.Following the Prime Minister’s directives, we will collect samples of minimum two suspected virus infected patients from each upazila. So we will collect at least 1,000 samples and test those by Friday,” said MD Habibur Rahman.
The efforts are taken after health experts have been stressing the need for more tests to take necessary actions assessing the real situation.
Experts expressed their anxiety about the number of infected people which could be higher as many carriers of the virus could escape the radar due to short testing cases.
The country tested samples from about 1,900 people till Thursday.
As part of expansion of testing facilities, the government equipped total eight facilities to test coronavirus suspecting patients’ samples. The facilities are IEDCR, icddr,b, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases at Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar Medical College Hospital, Institute of Public Health and Dhaka Shishu Hospital and Khulna Medical College Hospital.
More laboratories and facilities will be equipped soon for the same reason, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said it on Wednesday in a press briefing.
