Special Correspondent :
As Bangladesh fights the COVID-19 spread, the government has finally scaled up testing facilities amid fear of community spread of the mysterious virus.
The heath authorities has so far limited the tests only for patients with travel history and those who are “suspected cases” of COVID-19 despite mounting criticism that the limited tests could mask the true toll of the disease in the world’s most densely populated country.
“We are now expanding testing for the novel coronavirus, as most affected nations are doing, to effectively contain the spread of the virus in the country,” said a Health Ministry official, adding, “The World Health Organization earlier urged countries to test as many people as possible to curb the pandemic.”
The official, who requested anonymity, also said: “We need to offer such testing more widely to contain community spread. We are also bolstering lab testing infrastructures to expand the testing.”
He also mentioned that 513 coronavirus suspects were tested in the last 24 hours as the government has expanded the testing centers.
From March 8 to March 25, thirty three samples have been tested on an average per day by the IEDCR.
Bangladesh have so far confirmed 61 cases, most of which have been “imported,” linked to foreign travel or direct contact with someone who caught the disease abroad.
But experts believe that the country’s caseload is much higher that the government’s statistics given the poor number of testing.
They also mentioned that Bangladesh ranked lowest in terms of testing done per million population.
Bangladesh tests 10 samples per million population, many countries are testing hundreds of COVID-19 samples per million population, some thousands, and some even 10,000 per million.
The British government has announced to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day as the number of people with the virus who have died in the UK has risen by 569, taking the total to 2,921 as on Wednesday.
“We thank the government for revising the testing protocol,” said Dr Muzaherul Huq, Former Adviser of the WHO’s Southeast Asia region, who earlier suggested rapid testing of suspected patients to prevent spread of the virus in the country.
He said, a mass testing is necessary to detect the unknown coronavirus patients. It is also imperative to detect and control the community spread.
“The authorities have so far conducted tests of a very low number of suspected patients and this raises a growing concern of undetected communal spread,” said Dr Muzaherul, adding, “I do think that community transmission is happening in limited scale and the rapid testing can ascertain the real situation in this regard.”
He also urged the government to adopt aggressive measures to maintain quarantines and social distancing to contain the virus from spending further.
Dr Muzaherul further cited that those who remain in self-quarantine should immediately by sent to institutional quarantine to stop the community transmission, otherwise, the number of coronavirus cases may see a rapid spike.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the country, Dr Muzaherul called on people to join a collective national effort to fight against the coronavirus.
As Bangladesh fights the COVID-19 spread, the government has finally scaled up testing facilities amid fear of community spread of the mysterious virus.
The heath authorities has so far limited the tests only for patients with travel history and those who are “suspected cases” of COVID-19 despite mounting criticism that the limited tests could mask the true toll of the disease in the world’s most densely populated country.
“We are now expanding testing for the novel coronavirus, as most affected nations are doing, to effectively contain the spread of the virus in the country,” said a Health Ministry official, adding, “The World Health Organization earlier urged countries to test as many people as possible to curb the pandemic.”
The official, who requested anonymity, also said: “We need to offer such testing more widely to contain community spread. We are also bolstering lab testing infrastructures to expand the testing.”
He also mentioned that 513 coronavirus suspects were tested in the last 24 hours as the government has expanded the testing centers.
From March 8 to March 25, thirty three samples have been tested on an average per day by the IEDCR.
Bangladesh have so far confirmed 61 cases, most of which have been “imported,” linked to foreign travel or direct contact with someone who caught the disease abroad.
But experts believe that the country’s caseload is much higher that the government’s statistics given the poor number of testing.
They also mentioned that Bangladesh ranked lowest in terms of testing done per million population.
Bangladesh tests 10 samples per million population, many countries are testing hundreds of COVID-19 samples per million population, some thousands, and some even 10,000 per million.
The British government has announced to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day as the number of people with the virus who have died in the UK has risen by 569, taking the total to 2,921 as on Wednesday.
“We thank the government for revising the testing protocol,” said Dr Muzaherul Huq, Former Adviser of the WHO’s Southeast Asia region, who earlier suggested rapid testing of suspected patients to prevent spread of the virus in the country.
He said, a mass testing is necessary to detect the unknown coronavirus patients. It is also imperative to detect and control the community spread.
“The authorities have so far conducted tests of a very low number of suspected patients and this raises a growing concern of undetected communal spread,” said Dr Muzaherul, adding, “I do think that community transmission is happening in limited scale and the rapid testing can ascertain the real situation in this regard.”
He also urged the government to adopt aggressive measures to maintain quarantines and social distancing to contain the virus from spending further.
Dr Muzaherul further cited that those who remain in self-quarantine should immediately by sent to institutional quarantine to stop the community transmission, otherwise, the number of coronavirus cases may see a rapid spike.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the country, Dr Muzaherul called on people to join a collective national effort to fight against the coronavirus.
