Reza Mahmud :
Public health experts have expressed deep frustrations over government’s measures on battle against coronavirus spreading.
The experts said they are in dark as to how could the government manage to provide treatment facilities to the Covid-19 patients as the numbers of infected are increasing sharply across the country.
“We are in dark about the government’s capability of providing medical treatment to Covid-19 patients. The government designated officials have not clearly informed us that how many beds are the Covid-19 dedicated hospitals,” said one of the vital members of the ‘National Technical Advisory Committee’ formed to recommend the government about policies to tackle the virus.
He said it preferring anonymity.
He said the designated officials failed to disclose us about the accommodation facilities of the Covid-19 dedicated hospitals outside Dhaka.
“We suggested the government to increase beds in those hospitals outside the capital. But we did not know if they increased it or not,” the expert said.
If Covid-19 patients rush to Dhaka from other districts it will be very dangerous in all accounts, the public health experts said.
“The government is not following the recommendations of the public health experts. They even have not disclosed the capacities of treatment facilities. So that we are in dark about the on going fight to contain the virus in the country,” he said.
The member of the national committee, said, they have suggested the government not to reopen garment industries before controlling spreading of the virus. But they reopen that.
Public health experts from the national committee and beyond have expressed the similar anxiety over the government’s step to contain the virus outbreak in the country.
The garment workers as well the country in a risk to spread the virus as those are in return to their regular work in densely populated conditions.
“The managing authorities of those garments are saying that they have taken strict measures to maintain social distancing and other health measures in their factories. But who will hold surveillance of their residences? They used to live in tiny rooms with huge congesting conditions,” said Professor Dr. M. Muzaherul Huq, former South-East Asian Regional Advisor of World Health Organisation (WHO).
Besides, restaurants reopened during the Ramzan are also violating experts anxiety.
Experts said, the rush of customers in restaurants may not be tackled as the time frame to buy and sell is very limited. On the other hand, the people are also not aware enough to maintain social distancing during their purchasing time of iftar items from those restaurants and shops.
The other experts also said that not only reopening the garments and restaurants, the government is ignoring many other recommendations of the national committee.
Some of the members of the committee said when they recommended to the government to increase quality and quantity of the coronavirus testing labs, they are not showed heed.
“Of course they increased the numbers of Covid-19 testing laboratories, but there are more to address to reach adequate level of quality in those labs,” said one of the members of the national committee.
He said, “We suggested providing high pressure of Oxygen to all Covid-19 dedicated hospitals. But they have not replied us any more. Even we have not got the information that how many Covid-19 dedicated hospitals got high pressure oxygen facility so far.”
The members of the national committee said we suggested many things so far, but have no idea that how many of those are implemented. So, we cannot say how does the government fight against spreading of the virus.
