Md Kawser and Molla Mohammad Reza, students at Qinzhou University expected to return to Bangladesh due to the coronavirus outbreak, have expressed their dismay at the newly-enforced containment protocols.
Hearing of the mass quarantine initiative at Ashkona Hajj Camp, they said it might be better to stay in China, where medical facilities are much more advanced.
Bangladeshi students at Qinzhou University reached out to Dhaka Tribune over Facebook messenger.
The coronavirus epidemic has killed 259 people, all in China, according to the country's National Health Commission on Saturday. The disease had infected 11,781 people in China till Friday, the commission added, reports Reuters.
The epidemic has led to mass evacuations of foreign citizens by their home countries.
Preparations underway for admitting 7 returnees from China to the hospital as their body temperature was over 100 degrees | Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune
Meanwhile, the university’s vacation was scheduled to end on February 23 but an “indefinite holiday” has been announced until further notice in order to contain the coronavirus, said the students, who are expected to return home soon.
The students, in lockdown in the university, said they were surviving on bread, milk and biscuits as the university authorities had been avoiding “cooked” food.
Teachers are fixing buses and taxis and releasing students from the university after conducting tests, they added.
Another student, Fahad Bin Aziz, a student of computer science at Qinzhou University, arrived back in Dhaka on January 19.
Approximately, 70 to 80 Bangladeshi students are studying at the university, he told Dhaka Tribune.
“Medical examinations are being conducted twice a day on all students – local and foreign –at the university which is in total lockdown since the outbreak,” he said.
On January 30, another 19 Bangladeshi students returned from Qinzhou to Dhaka.
“None of them were tested [for the virus]. They went straight home having shown no signs of illnesses,” Aziz said.
“Another 10 [students] of Qinzhou University are expected to arrive on a 7:30am flight on February 3 [tomorrow],” he said.
A special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines brought back 316 Bangladeshi citizens stranded in China's Wuhan, the epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak.
Bangladesh will keep them under observation at the Hajj camp in Dhaka’s Ashkona area before China lifts the ongoing 14-day restriction to avoid any risk.
Of the returnees, seven are currently undergoing treatment at Kurmitola General Hospital and three at Combined Military Hospital (CMH).