As Bangladesh fights back the COVID-19 epidemic, a local biotech company OMC Healthcare (Pvt) Ltd has developed COVID-19 RT-PCR testing kit to support the country’s health sector during this challenging time.
The company developed the Test Kit following the complete guideline of WHO that received approval for commercial production from the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), Bangladesh on 3rd January 2021.
Developed as per guideline of WHO and US CDC, this RT-PCR Test Kit could successfully detect the mutated form of COVID-19. As such, this kit can be one of Bangladesh’s principal weapons in making effective diagnosis and doing clinical management of COVID-19.
There is no alternative to coronavirus testing to identify corona-infected patients and in Bangladesh, it is a major concern to have adequate test kits at an affordable price. It is obvious that imported kits are expensive for mass population screening for COVID-19 and 30- 40% of expense could be reduced if OMC Healthcare kits are used.
Moreover, it is a sheer challenging task to import Covid-19 Test kits as per demand from other countries during this pandemic. The scarcity of test kits will end if RT-PCR test kits are produced in the country, and can also be exported to other countries after meeting the country’s demand.
In this regard OMC HealthCare CEO, Mazbahul Kabir said, “Primarily we have the capacity of producing 40-50 thousand Covid-19 RT-PCR test kit every day, and if needed we can expand the capacity as per requirement. To ensure the highest quality of our test kit, we have used automatic production line.”
“The approval of this test kit has been rapidly progressed with the utmost cooperation of DGDA and IEDCR,” he added.
It is hoped that this RT-PCR test kit, developed by OMC Healthcare, will play a vital role in the country's healthcare response to the Covid-19 pandemic and will further strengthen Bangladesh's position in the world arena.
