Govt hospitals not ready yet for Covid testing

More than 90 percent of all Covid-19 tests are now being conducted at private hospitals as many government hospitals remain unprepared to carry out the task amid a rising infection rate in Bangladesh and neighbouring nations.

In the first 15 days of June, Covid-19 tests were conducted at 20 hospitals and only three of them were government-run: Cox's Bazar, Mymensingh and Rajshahi Medical Colleges, according to data from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The three government hospitals carried out 105 tests out of a total of 1,135 during the period.

Many government hospitals have not conducted Covid-19 tests for an extended period, necessitating the recalibration of their equipment.

Moreover, the conclusion of a major project that had supported Covid-19 testing and treatment has left several facilities with a shortage of trained technicians, officials said.

For example, Sir Salimullah Medical College and Mitford Hospital in Dhaka wrote to the DGHS yesterday requesting test kits and other equipment to resume Covid-19 testing.

However, when asked about their preparedness, the hospital authorities informed the DGHS that the testing machines needed recalibration for being out of use for long.

In addition, they said the hospital does not have any dedicated technicians for the job, according to DGHS sources.

Meanwhile, the DGHS on Thursday supplied test kits to six major hospitals in Dhaka and Chattogram.

Among them, the directors of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, Mugda Medical College Hospital and Chattogram Medical College Hospital said they would resume testing from Saturday.

However, as of yesterday, DGHS data showed that the hospitals had not carried out any tests, suggesting they had not resumed testing as planned.

On the other hand, the directors of Kurmitola General Hospital and the DNCC Dedicated Covid-19 Hospital in Dhaka said they have been continuously testing patients and will continue to do so. Yet, these hospitals also do not appear in the DGHS data.

The Directorate General of Medical Education has already instructed 11 medical colleges outside Dhaka to activate their RT-PCR testing facilities, said its director general Nazmul Hossain.

Five of the medical colleges have already reactivated their equipment, while the others are expected to do so within a day or two, he told The Daily Star yesterday.

The five that have activated equipment are Rajshahi, Cox's Bazar, Gopalganj, Mymensingh and Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College in Bogura. The remaining six -- Rangpur, Sylhet, Chattogram, Faridpur, Barishal, and Khulna -- are expected to follow soon, he added.

The equipment needs to be calibrated as it has not been used for a long time, so it is taking some time, he said.

Halimur Rashid, line director of the Communicable Disease Control unit at the DGHS, told The Daily Star yesterday that they have been supplying test kits to more government hospitals.

Responding to a question, he said offices had just reopened after the Eid vacation and they hope the hospitals will be ready within a week.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 Emergency Response and Pandemic Preparedness Project, under which 1,004 employees -- many of them technicians and medical officers -- played a crucial role in Covid testing and treatment during the pandemic, has come to an end.

The project, funded through a World Bank project, concluded in December last year. In May, the DGHS instructed the staff to discontinue their duties.

The workers have been staging a sit-in in front of the DGHS for the past two days demanding payment of overdue salaries and confirmation of their jobs.

Their absence could hamper Covid testing and treatment, two of the project workers told the correspondent yesterday.

The developments come at a time when the infection rate is seeing a surge from last month, according to Covid-19 surveillance data analysed by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research.

In the last 24 hours, 26 people tested positive for Covid 19 and one died, raising the death toll to four since June 5, when the country reported its first Covid-related death after a long gap.

Meanwhile, the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education yesterday instructed all educational institutions to engage both teachers and students in awareness campaigns against coronavirus and dengue.