Staff Reporter :
The government currently have no plans to use the rapid testing kit for coronavirus since the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet approved it, said Major General Mahbubur Rahman, Director General of Directorate General of Drug Administration.
He made the statements while briefing reporters at Bangladesh Secretariat on Monday
Major General Mahbubur Rahman has claimed
that the Gonoshasthaya Kendra has not properly followed the pathway of production while developing the rapid testing kit for coronavirus.
However, it will continue to support the program since the kit may get approved in the future.
He said, “We are facilitating the innovation of the testing kit by Bangladeshi scientists, and we will continue doing it. But the Gonoshasthaya Kendra is not following due process.”
Gonoshasthaya Kendra authorities recently went to hand over the Covid-19 rapid testing kits that they produced to the representatives of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for final approval. However, officials were not present to receive them.
“The steps are – innovate a kit, test its sensitivity, conduct trial run, performance evaluation, clear verification of trial, and if the results are satisfactory, and then go to production. But the Gonoshasthaya Kendra organized a program to handover the testing kits without doing trial runs and performance evaluation,” said Major General Mahbubur Rahman.
“As the process has not been completed, we didn’t receive the kits,” he added.
DGDA claimed that the Gonoshasthaya Kendra Founder Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury has also been spreading misleading information about us, which not only disrespected us, but also served to create confusion; but we will always remain supportive of innovation.
“Whenever they sought any kind of support we provided them immediately, since we know that we must work together to #overcome the pandemic,” he said.
He said, “China and India started to use rapid testing kit them but stopped since they were producing false results.”
Meanwhile, Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury said, We have finally requested the Drug Administration to test the effectiveness of this kit through IEDCR, BSMMU, ICDDR or CMH. By the way, the Drug Administration has to write a letter to us for test of it.
“We can’t test the kit ourselves. It is the responsibility of the Drug Administration,” he added.
Zafrullah also said that if the issue is not resolved within last few days, he will write a letter to the Prime Minister.
Refuting the DGDA’s allegation Dr Zafrullah said that they are giving wrong information for ignorantly. Because the World Health Organization (WHO) does not approve any drugs or devices. It is approved by the Drug Administrations of the respective countries.
He claimed that some unknown organizations have been given the responsibility to test any drugs or medical equipment. No well-known organization was given this responsibility.
