The Health Department has not yet been able to fix any target on the number of daily tests to be conducted even three and a half months since the start of COVID-19 transmission in Bangladesh.
While China is conducting at least 10 lakh tests per day in a single city, unfortunately Bangladesh is conducting only 15,000 to 16,000 tests countrywide.
As per the latest information received on Tuesday, at least 43 people died from coronavirus infections in 24 hours with the death toll standing at 1,545.
Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general (administration) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said on Tuesday during the daily briefing that 3,412 people had tested positive for Covid-19 in 24 hours. With this the current infection rate is 20.94 percent and the total number of infections in the country is 1,19,198.
A total of 16,292 samples were tested across the country in 24 hours, Dr Nasima said.
Meanwhile, 880 Covid-19 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours. The total number of recoveries has reached 47,635, the DGHS official added.
The reality is that testing of coronavirus symptoms is being conducted in a very unorganised way and that is why the actual scenario of the coronavirus transmission in the country is not available.
Under these circumstances, Health and Family Planning Minister Dr. Zahid Maleq said that some problems have been created in the testing process due to kit shortages.
He, however, said that there are kit shortages in almost all the countries in the world. But, at present, there was an adequate stock of kits, the minister claimed.
“The government is ready to meet all the demands for test kits, and therefore there is nothing to be worried about,” the minister added.
Although the number of tests is very low compared to the demand, people have to wait for a long time to get the test reports. Authenticity of the reports are also questionable while sample collections are also not being done properly.
Against this backdrop, the entire Health Department and health management system are now under question.
Health experts opined that the Health Department could not fix its target on the corona testing due to shortage of laboratories and skilled manpower. Test results could not be given on time for the same reasons. The main thing is that there is no proper coordination centrally to fight a pandemic like COVID-19.
Experts also said that people of the country are very eager to conduct tests to be sure of whether they are infected by the virus. People are seen waiting in the queues for hours to provide their samples. But adequate number of tests could be conducted due to laboratory shortages.
The Health Department in its daily briefing is saying that it has to preserve a huge number of samples for the next day as it cannot conduct all the tests on the day the samples are collected.
Many people are losing interest in getting tested for the delay or negligence by the concerned people of the health department. Besides, there are many examples of wrong or faulty test reports.
On the other hand, many hospitals are refusing patients admission. The overall situation is just short of horrific.
According to experts, at present corona tests are being conducted in a total of 62 laboratories across the country. But, two of the laboratories are facing problems to conduct tests due to some technical difficulties.
