Habibur Rahman (not his real name), a journalist at a daily newspaper, did not show any Covid-19 symptoms. He went about his professional and personal work through taking necessary measures.
In the last week of May, his wife showed some of the symptoms of coronavirus and upon testing, a few days later, the results came back positive. But, living under the same roof with his wife, Habib did not display any symptoms. Even though later he also tested positive.
“We could not confirm from where we had contracted the disease. We did however meet our relatives for some necessary work before testing positive,” Habib told Dhaka Tribune.
In another instance, five doctors shared a dormitory at Borhanuddin Upazila Health Complex at Bhola.
One medical officer, Moshiur Rahman, tested positive on Saturday. Before getting the result, the doctor had been carrying on with his regular duty and attending to patients.
Moshiur, who was also an asymptomatic patient, said on June 5 a patient came to the hospital with some Covid-19 symptoms and he attended to him. Later on June 11, the patient tested positive.
“I was feeling a little uneasy and wanted to get myself tested even though I had no symptoms,” Moshiur said.
“Since I didn’t show any symptoms and was on duty, the risk of infection was high for my patients and my colleagues,” Moshiur added.
On Sunday, another medical officer, who lived in the same dorm with Moshiur, also tested positive.
Dr Ratan Kumar Dhali, civil surgeon of Bhola, told Dhaka Tribune: “As per our directives, doctors have been using PPEs [personal protective equipment]. If patients also use protective measures, then the risk is lessened.”
Prof Be-Nazir Ahmed, former director of Communicable Disease Control (CDC) at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said that the IEDCR could know the statistics relating to asymptomatic patients who had been tested but still that would not constitute real figures. “Without proper surveys, nobody knows how many asymptomatic cases are there in the country.”
“The good thing about asymptomatic cases is that there’s no need to provide them with treatment and they will not die. But the dangerous side of it is that they are not isolated and spread the virus to others.
“There’s some hope, though, since the World Health Organization recently revealed in a study that the degree of transmission is lower by asymptomatic patients, as they are not producing droplets,” the professor added.
He added: “From the newly formed zoning system, we can find out who are the asymptomatic people. Just trace whoever came into contact with positive patients. Most of the other countries have done the same. We have to increase our lab and testing facilities. And the other way is by testing service personnel, including doctors, between specific periods.”
Prof Saif Ullah Munshi, chairperson of the Department of Virology at BSMMU, said that although the transmission of the infection from asymptomatic patients was low, they too needed to be tested, especially doctors. “As a frontline fighter, it is unreasonable if any doctor has to go through the hassle to avail testing.”
“Contact tracing is not recommended when there has been community transmission. We have to enhance our lab and testing facilities. In many other countries, including India, government and private initiatives are working in parallel. Why is our government taking all the pressure?” the professor asked.
Earlier in April, the IEDCR had said that the number of asymptomatic patients would not be huge. It found that 23% of all Covid-19 cases were asymptomatic. That is one-fourth of all cases.
When contacted, Dr Alamgir Hossain, chief scientific officer of IEDCR told Dhaka Tribune that among the total infected persons that were tested in Bangladesh, 20-25% are asymptomatic.
Epidemiological studies on the coronavirus suggests that 5% to 30 % patients are asymptomatic globally, and they were not tested, he added.