Dhaka’s Square Hospital on Thursday began conducting antibody tests, which can indicate whether a person has had Covid-19 in the past and is either asymptomatic or has recovered from the illness.
However, as per government policy, only designated doctors can refer as to who are eligible to take this test.
Square Hospitals Medical Services Associate Director Prof Wahiuddin Mahmud spoke to Dhaka Tribune about the tests.
He said: “One test will cost Tk800. At this moment, the main goal of running antibody tests is to see who are eligible to donate plasma since plasma therapy is one of the more effective methods of treating Covid-19 patients who are in a critical state.”
Experts hope that a large number of plasma donors will be identified through this move as the country has seen a steep rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in the past few months.
As of Thursday, Bangladesh had confirmed 153,277 Covid-19 cases and 1,926 deaths.
Dr Wahiduddin said: “There are a large number of people who got infected but were asymptomatic.
“This antibody test will help to find such cases and see if they can donate plasma or not.”
“We are on a trial run. First, we need to see how many people are referred by doctors to take this test,” he said.
Meanwhile, as per World Health Organization recommendations, laboratory tests that detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in people, including rapid immunodiagnostic tests, need further validation to determine their accuracy and reliability.
“Inaccurate immunodiagnostic tests may falsely categorize people in two ways. The first is that they may falsely label people who have been infected as negative, and the second is that people who have not been infected are falsely labelled as positive,” WHO added.