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Govt has 500 ventilators, 350 more coming


Published : 29 Mar 2020 09:41 PM | Updated : 06 Sep 2020 06:00 AM

Health Minister Zahid Maleque has denied statement of a section of people that Bangladesh has only 29 ventilators to manage coronavirus patients across the country. “The government has 500 ventilators across Bangladesh... More 350 are coming soon,” he said on Sunday joining the regular online briefing of the IEDCR.

“Some people are saying that we have 29 ventilators. This is not correct. Please don’t confuse people. This is the time to work together,” he said, adding that the government is working taking all people together. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some 80 percent of the people with coronavirus recover without needing hospital treatment.

But one person in every six becomes seriously ill and can develop breathing difficulties. In these severe cases, the virus causes damage to the lungs. The body's immune system detects this and expands blood vessels so more immune cells enter. But this can cause fluid to enter the lungs, making it harder to breathe, and causing the body's oxygen levels to drop. To alleviate this, a machine ventilator is used to push air, with increased levels of oxygen, into the lungs.

The health minister said the government is well prepared to tackle the situation. “We have started working on that from the beginning. We have set up airport screening machines in the first week of January. Since then we are monitoring that,” he said.