Special Correspondent :
As Bangladesh reports fourth coronavirus death, public health experts have recommended rapid testing of suspected patients to prevent spread of the virus in the country.
“The situation is serious and the government takes it seriously. It should take necessary measures to expand the testing facility before the country suffers more human losses from the virus,” Dr Muzaherul Huq, former Adviser of the WHO’s Southeast Asia region, told The New Nation yesterday.
He also said that the WHO urges countries to test more people to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, but Bangladesh has not expanded testing so far raising fear that limited testing could leave coronavirus cases undetected in the country.
“So, a mass testing is necessary to detect the unknown coronavirus patients and it is necessary to control the community spreading,” he noted.
Pointing to deaths of four patients, he said, “All the deceased were old aged meaning morbidity and mortality rate of this age group is 100 per cent, which is alarming. We should immediately build designated hospitals for coronavirus patients with special focus on elderly people. This hospital must furnish with ICU and ventilation facility.” When asked, Dr Muzaherul said, “The “worst” is yet to come and “very difficult” days are ahead because of reported community transmission. “Sending expatriates, who arrived home from coronavirus hotspot countries, to self-quarantine was a ‘big mistake’ and it may take a big toll on public health,” he commented.
He further cited that those who are in self-quarantine should immediately be sent to institutional quarantine to stop the community transmission, otherwise, the number of coronavirus cases may see a rapid spike.
He also suggested the government to use upazila and district level hospitals as institutional quarantines.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise, Dr Muzaherul called on people to join a collective national effort to fight against the coronavirus.
He also suggested the government to follow the Chinese style to contain the virus.
Former Vice-Chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Professor Nazrul Islam said, “Bangladesh has already entered into the spreading time of the virus and that’s why the government needs to take bold steps to fend off the virus.”
He said the government should follow WHO’s recommendation-“test, test and test”–to contain the coronavirus. “Right now we’re not doing enough coronavirus tests because of limited testing facility. But we need to test every suspected case to effectively fight against the virus,” he added.
So, he urged the authorities to expand coronavirus testing facility in several other parts of the country to confirm the undetected coronavirus patients. We should also take appropriate measures to slow the rate of spread.
“We need to focus on testing to contain the coronavirus. But we cannot do like China or S. Korea because we simply don’t have adequate resources and capacity,” Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, a renowned public health promoter of the country, told The New Nation.
He said availability of testing kits is necessary to make random testing of suspected patients. But we also lack in this area,” he added. Now is the time to act to ensure that these testing kits are available to the public as soon as possible.
Prof ABM Abdullah said, Chief of the coronavirus prevention national coordination committee said, “Random testing will create panic and put immense burden on the public health infrastructure. “Now we have focused on testing taking into account need and capacity. But, we will definitely expand testing facility.”
Right now the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has the sole testing facility and no other hospitals – public or private are allowed to conduct coronavirus tests.
“We are assuming that number of patients may rise further. Keeping that in mind, we are working to expand testing facilities in all divisions,” IEDCR Director Dr. Meerjady Sabrina Flora told the New Nation.
“In the past 24 hours, the IEDCR has tested 92 samples while the total number of samples tested stands at 712,” Sabrina Flora said this in a press briefing on Tuesday.
