Emran Hossain | New Age Apr 12,2020
Health officials in Narayanganj are having a hard time in coping with spiralling cases of COVID-19 with no testing facilities on hand in the industrial belt adjoining to Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research already declared Narayanganj a hotspot for coronavirus spread along with Dhaka with dozens of new cases reported almost every day.
The IEDCR confirmed two dozen new cases in 24 hours ending at 8:00am Sunday morning with the total number of people infected in the district climbing to 107, the second largest number in the country after Dhaka where the number of infections stands at 335.
‘The government need to act fast as the spread of coronavirus is very fast in Narayanganj,’ said Narayanganj civil surgeon Mohammad Imtiaz, who recently tested positive for coronavirus, over the phone.
‘The government must make special arrangements for dealing with an overwhelming number of cases in Narayanganj,’ he said.
Four days ago Imtiaz wrote to the health services directorate for immediately establishing a testing laboratory at Narayanganj.
The district committee to prevent the spread of the coronavirus decided to send the letter after coronavirus cases witnessed a steady rise in the district since the first case was reported in Bangladesh on March 8.
It takes three days to confirm a coronavirus positive case in Narayanganj, said the civil surgeon.
The first day is spent by health officers collecting samples door-to-door. The second day is needed for carrying samples to IEDCR and then have those tested there. The test result does not come before the third day, said Imtiaz.
‘It only allows the virus to spread further when it takes longer to test,’ said Imtiaz.
The lack of machineries aside, the major obstacle to constructing a testing laboratory overnight in a badly affected area is that there are no virologists and microbiologists working with the government.
‘The government never felt that its army of health workers needed virologists and microbiologists,’ he said.
Currently there are 17 laboratories testing coronavirus across the country. Nine of them are in Dhaka. The test facilities outside Dhaka are at medical colleges where virologists and microbiologists are available.
The testing laboratories outside Dhaka are in Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Sylhet, Khulna and Barishal.
Health workers in Narayanganj, divided in four teams, collected 59 samples on Sunday. The samples will be sent to IEDCR on Monday.
The health officers could respond to only a limited number of requests for tests.
The health services additional director general Nasima Sultana said that they have plans for establishing a testing lab at Narayanganj.
She denied answering how long it would take to be implemented.
The rapid rise in COVID-19 patients in Narayanganj has scared the entire nation and in many districts people who returned from Narayanganj were handed over to the police for quarantine.
Two of the first three cases reported in Bangladesh were from Narayanganj.
Fearing that many were still undetected, experts said only a lot of tests can give a real picture of how bad the coronavirus infection got in Narayanganj.
IEDCR refused to comment on the matter.
Narayanganj mayor Selina Hayat Ivy told New Age that the government was seriously considering establishing a coronavirus testing lab at Narayanganj.
‘The government is importing machines and making arrangement for technical hands to run a lab in Narayanganj,’ said Ivy.
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