COUNTERFEIT personal protective equipment, sanitisers and other health-protective gears are flooding the informal street shops in the capital unchecked as the COVID-19 outbreak is getting worse in the country. Some traders are importing poor quality masks and manufacturing unauthorised and unhygienic sanitisers as the demands have skyrocketed over the last two months. Public health experts expressed fear that fake PPE and sanitisers might deepen the health crises as the authorities were not monitoring and regulating their sale properly.
Health administration has recently made face masks mandatory in public places, declaring highest Tk 1 lakh fine in case of violation. After that, the unauthorised protection gears sale went up that allured a section of people to become rich overnight due to the high margin of profit in the sector. Medicine markets of Mitford Hospital and streets in front of the hospital have become a major hub of the business as a number of traders have been selling these products on the streets. Some street vendors said that they collect these products from different factories in Kamrangir Char. PPE suites were seen being sold at Tk 200 and traders were asking Tk 500 for a piece of N95 mask and Tk 100 for a KN95 mask.
Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection said they are carrying out drives at pharmacies and medicine markets while it was the police who were supposed to conduct drives on street vendors selling such products. Law enforcers said that some people were active in collecting used PPE and masks from different city hospitals and were selling them after washing and ironing them in Kamrangir Char and Keranignaj area. It is the duty of the government to maintain availability of quality PPE, and stop the counterfeiting of health safety gears, otherwise, we cannot defeat the pandemic virus. When people are largely depending on safety equipment, the counterfeit health safety equipments will help spread this deadly novel coronavirus.
But we are relying on police or mobile courts to take the baton charge for an honest and efficient government. This has not been able to show success in stopping anyone from corruption. As an institution police has been corrupted for the benefit of the government politics of remaining in power. Our problem is the corruption based government. The people cannot turn to anybody for help.
