Thousands of people in the country are at risk of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection as most of the foreign returnees did not maintain home quarantine strictly, experts said. Medical professionals envisage that the virus may transmit at larger numbers which will eventually become a big challenge for the country.
Although the country has been largely successful in the ongoing ‘home quarantine policy’ since last Thursday, facilities for the coronavirus testing was very limited. Experts also say that the true state of coronavirus in the country will be understood within next two to three weeks.
At this time the disease will spread to the community level, health workers including doctors and nurses could be infected and the number of patients will increase, they ascertained. An expert said that in order to prevent further coronavirus infection, we have to fight against coronavirus at this critical time. If the disease is not controlled during this period, the situation will become worse.
At this time, they emphasized the identification of foreign returnees and suspected persons who came contact with other common people. They also suggested to test more and more people to identify patients and to confirm the treatment of the infected. Terming medical staff as ‘soldiers’ of the war against coronavirus, they urged the government to ensure providing necessary protection for them.
Explaining the ‘critical’ time, former Vice-Chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and Chairman of the Department of Virology Dr Nazrul Islam said, “In mid-March about 300,000 foreign returnees have returned to Bangladesh mostly from affected countries, even from the countries where the disease has spread through social contacts.”
He continued, “Since these returnees did not properly maintain home quarantine, they may have infected their family members, relatives and people who came in contact with them. They are the first source of the corona expansion.” “The people who came in contact with foreign returnees, if infected, the disease will spread to the third level in the next 14 days,” he said, adding that next two to three weeks is a very critical time for us.
Professor Dr Nazrul Islam said that at this time, all the victims and those who went near them should be identified, taken to the quarantine. This time government should pay more attention to the Coronavirus test and increase the scope of the test. Whoever is in doubt of infection, must be tested. Especially, community level the test should be increased.”
“Bangladesh is passing through a very risky time of possible spreading coronavirus. Especially, the next 10 to 14 days will be a very ‘critical’ time for Bangladesh. Because at this time, it has been suspected of spreading to the third level or the community level,” Dr Nirupam Das, founder and spokesperson of Bangladesh Doctors Foundation (BDF) told Bangladesh Post.
Earlier, in the first round, the disease had already spread locally through Bangladeshi migrants coming from affected countries in mid-March. Health workers, especially doctors and nurses, have been exposed and already started to suffer from coronavirus infection, which has increased the risk of spreading the infection in the country, he added.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has raised concern about countries which are not testing enough to detect persons carrying coronavirus, though they did not mention the name of any specific country. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the reports at a virtual press conference, “We have a simple message for all countries: Test, test, test. Test every suspected case. If they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in contact with two days before they developed the symptoms and test those people, too.”
Though the number of people diagnosed with coronavirus and the number of infected people is increasing in the country, the detection test is not increasing. Therefore, many experts are considering Bangladesh as a high-risk country considering the population density and the way of social life of the people here.
However, in response to the coronavirus transmission, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) tested a total of 1076 people till March 28 and only 48 people in 24 hours (March 28). To thwart the coronavirus, the government have prepared only 3,982 service providers in 323 institutions across the country for institutional quarantines. Among them, there are 1,123 doctors, 1,575 nurses and 1,284 other service providers. From these institutions, only 18,923 people can get treatment.
About the test, IEDCR Director Professor Dr Mirzadi Sabrina Flora said, “At first, we collected and tested samples only those who came from abroad or came in contact with the coronavirus infected persons. But now, not only they, IEDCR is also testing those who came in contact with foreign returnees.”
