Staff Reporter :
The government will soon set up four PCR labs in Dhaka for rapid testing of coronavirus suspected patients.
Besides, coronavirus testing has already started at the Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (BITID) in Chattogram as part of the government initiative to expand the testing facilities across the country.
DGHS Management Information System Director Dr Md Habibur Rahman came up with the information at a virtual press briefing at the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) on Saturday.
He said PCR testing labs will be set up at Dhaka Medical College Hospital,Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University,Armed Forces Pathology Institute, National Institute of Laboratory Medicine and Kurmitola General Hospital.
“PCR labs are being set up at Rangpur and Rajshahi medical colleges and skilled persons have been sent to Mymensingh Medical College to initiate the set up there,” he added.
Meanwhile, sixteen additional ventilators have been installed at Kuwait Bangladesh Friendship Government Hospital and eight more are being set up at Sheikh Russel Gastro Liver Institute & Hospital.
“No new patient tested positive for COVID-19 in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours, keeping the total number of confirmed cases at 48,” IEDCR Director Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora said at the press briefing.
She said four more coronavirus patients have made complete recovery during this period.
“In the past 24 hours, IEDCR has tested 42 samples and BITID in Chattogram five but all of them were negative,” Flora said, adding that 1,068 samples have so far been tested.
So far, 15 people have made recovery. Prof Flora said the patients were hospitalised for around eight to 16 days and theywere aged between two and above 50 years.
“Most of the time we have treated them based on the symptoms,” she said adding that certain patients received treatments for comorbidites.
Currently, 47 people are in isolation.
The IEDCR Director further said there are signs of community transmission of the coronavirus in some areas.
“There has been community transmission in limited scale in one or two areas. We’ve separated those areas immediately…we’ve also found clustered patients in some places where no infections were found outside those clusters,” she said.
Dr Flora noted that this situation cannot be described as a full-scale community transmission.
“We’ve been closely monitoring such infections,” she said, adding that in the past 24 hours, IEDCR received 3,450 calls through hotlines regarding coronavirus infection.
