The Gonoshasthaya Kendra in a small programme unveiled its COVID-19 testing kits on Saturday where no government official concerned were present. The Kendra will hand over the testing kits to the Directorate General of Drug Administration on Sunday, said the Kendra officials.
A representative from the US centers for disease control and prevention and officials of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University were present at the unveiling programme at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital at Dhanmondi. Gonoshasthaya-RNA Biotech Limited, a concern of Gonoshasthaya Kendra in Bangladesh, had developed method named Rapid Dot Blot to test COVID-19.
Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder Zafrullah Chowdhury said that they have invited the Directorate General of Drug Administration officials at the programme to handover some testing kits, but none of the government officials appeared there. Only representative from CDC and BSMMU were present at the programme.
Zafrullah said that they were ready to produce one lakh testing kits, subject to the approval of concerned authorities. The kit development programme coordinator Muhib Ullah Khondokar told New Age that they will approach to the Directorate General of Drug Administration on Sunday and handover their samples for approval.
He said that they have completed internal validation where they found that their kits were over 90 per cent successful in detecting COVID-19 infections. “Now it requires external validation. That is why we are handing over samples to CDC and BSMMU,” he added.
