The government on Wednesday announced giving permission to private hospitals for testing coronavirus after more than 50 days of the disease outbreak in Bangladesh.
Additional director general for health Prof Nasima Sultana at the daily bulletin said four hospitals – Evercare (former Apollo Hospitals in Dhaka), United and Square hospitals in Dhaka and US-Bangla Medical College Hospital in Rupganj – began testing samples after the government’s permission following inspection of their RT-PCR labs.
“This is very encouraging that private sector is supplementing the efforts of the government to test more suspected cases,” she said. “The government is gradually expanding testing facilities as part of its preventive measures to fight COVID-19”
She, however, said the three hospitals in Dhaka can only test the samples of inpatients for COVID-19.
“We haven't yet given them permission to test samples of outpatients as it could cause problems with the follow-ups,” she said, adding that the Rupganj center is open to all.
While the testing at public facilities is free, the government has fixed a charge for those private facilities. She said results of those new labs would be included from Thursday.
Bangladesh first confirmed the virus cases on March 8 where only the IEDCR was testing samples. With the gradual increase, now the number of testing labs rose to 26 under the government. Three more labs will be set up within few days.
So far, 59,701 samples have been tested including 4,968 in the last 24 hours between 8am of Tuesday and 8am of Wednesday.
By testing those new samples, the health department confirmed single-day highest 641 new cases, raising the total tally of COVID-19
infections to 7,103. Of them 150 returned home from hospitals after recovery and 163 died.
Two-third of the patients is said to be staying at home for their mild symptoms.
