Ex-NHRC chief Mizan recovering in ICU

The health condition prominent human rights activist Dr Mizanur Rahman has been improving after he was shifted to Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a city hospital on Saturday night. The former chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) was admitted at Anwer Khan Modern Hospital in Dhanmondi, Dhaka on Thursday for chest infection, respiratory problems and low salinity, said Dr Abdus Shakur Khan, pulmonologist at the hospital. “He was taken to the ICU last [Saturday] night when his condition deteriorated,” he told the Dhaka Tribune on Monday. Earlier on Saturday, a medical board was formed at the hospital to discuss Mizan's condition and determine the next course of treatment, Dr Shakur added. But since he was taken to the ICU, his condition has improved, said Dr Col (retd) SM Hossain Shahid, head of the hospital's department of critical care medicine. Mizan is still under mechanical ventilator and the doctors have yet to decide when he would be moved out of ICU. “We will gradually take him off the ventilator, depending on his condition. The antibiotics administered to him are working effectively, and we are hoping we would be able go back to regular treatment,” Dr Shahid told the Dhaka Tribune on Monday afternoon. He further said Mizan gained his consciousness in ICU and responded to questions without much trouble. “If his condition keeps improving, we may be able to release him from ICU in two or three days.” The incumbent NHRC Chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque visited Mizan at the hospital on Saturday, according to a NHRC press release issued on Monday. Mizan, a professor and former chairman of the department of law at Dhaka University, retired from the post of NHRC chairman on June 22 this year.