Special Correspondent :
The government has chalked out a Tk 1,400 crore project to strengthen its public health infrastructure amid rapid spread of coronavirus across the country.
“The project has initiated to boost the country’s health infrastructure, ramping up procurement of ICU beds, ventilators and mobilizing necessary resources to deal with the Covid-19 challenges,” a senior Planning Ministry official told The New Nation on Wednesday, asking not to be named. He said the project has taken up emergency basis to fight against the coronavirus. “The project will roll soon to address the needs of dedicated hospitals, emergency medical personnel and service providers, and boost the testing facilities.”
Bangladesh has recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases in 24 hours for the second consecutive day, with 641 more people testing positive.
Also, eight more Covid-19 patients died in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll in the country to 163.
With the latest figure, the number of total confirmed cases across the country has climbed to 7,103 and death toll to 163.
“The authorities have started scaling up health infrastructure to deal with coronavirus and any health emergency,” said a health ministry official.
He said, the government has already provided funds to the health ministry to procure testing kits, setting up of new isolation wards, including turning hospital beds into intensive care unit, infection prevention and control, and purchase of personal protective equipment, ventilators, and medicines, particularly for district hospitals and designated infectious disease hospitals.
The health ministry official further said that they are working relentlessly with the stakeholders to strengthen capabilities of public hospitals, expand the capacity of laboratories and increase the access to healthcare facilities for the people.
“Covid-19 outbreak causes a big strain on the country’s health infrastructure. But we are working with urgency to tackle the outbreak,” he added.
When asked, the health ministry official said that the country’s health system was not praiseworthy. The government needs to allocate necessary resource and manpower to strengthen the health system to improve the country’s capacity to respond to the covid-19 epidemic and be better prepared to respond to emerging disease outbreaks.
