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Bangladesh launches a unique Covid-19 management course for doctors with Brown University


Published : 14 Jun 2021 10:16 PM

Bangladesh has launched a unique virtual course on Covid-19 management for the doctors as the pandemic coronavirus is spreading from cities to rural areas.

The 3-hour ‘Web-based Advanced COVID-19 Clinical Management Course’ would help the doctors at any corners of the country with the training they need before attending a Covid-19 patient.

“This course will teach them about what to do and what not to do. Doctors need to know what treatment should be given with what doses and when,” Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora, who led the advisory board of the course as an additional director general for health services, said in the virtual launching ceremony.

She said this web-based training is important at the present context as the virus is spreading in rural areas.

“We are serving patients at Upazilla level now. This guide will help our physicians there and also the private sector physicians. This is very much aligned with the national guidelines. So we will be able to provide uniform care across the country,” she said.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque thanked Brown University, USA for developing the course at the launching event. “Recently we are witnessing another escalation of Covid-19 cases. We are extremely grateful to Brown University,” he said.

The US development agency USAID, and the international NGO Save the Children also helped the Directorate General of Health Services to develop the course.

Dr. Ruhul Abid, an Associate Professor of the Brown University, said this web-based course is made available at the government’s corona website.

“This course is contextualised to Bangladesh. All doctors from government and private facilities would be able to learn how to manage Covid-19 patients and when to admit a patient and when not to admit the patient,” Dr Abid, who studied at Dhaka Medical College, said.

“We followed the latest national guideline of the Bangladesh government. Any doctor can take it. The course contains three different modules. There are audios, videos and different kinds of modules to complete the course. There are interactive videos to show what a doctor should do when a patient comes to an upazilla health complex,” he said.

At the end of the course, the participants will appear in an auto generated test for certificates.

The course is dedicated to the physicians who lost their lives while treating patients in Bangladesh.

Secretaries of the health minister Md Lokman Hossain Mian and Md. Ali Noor, USAID Director Xerses Sidhwa, Director General for health services Prof. Dr. Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam and additional director general Prof Dr Nasima Sultana were also present at the ceremony, among others. Prof Nazmul Islam, spokesperson of the health directorate, moderated the event.

Bangladesh recorded the first three cases of Covid-19 on March 8 last year. So far, the government confirmed 829,972 cases. Some 13,172 people died from the disease, according to the health directorate’s bulletin.