After days of hide-and-seek with the press regarding the exact number of Covid-19 test kits in stock, health authorities here confirmed that they have more than 100,000 Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) kits.
“At present, we have more than 100,000 Covid-19 test kits in stock, which are being supplied to the different labs conducting tests,” Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Additional Director General (Administration) Prof Nasima Sultana told an online bulletin on Thursday afternoon.
Claiming that the process to import more kits is underway, she said: “We now can procure a maximum cache of 40,000 kits, since their demand has skyrocketed across the world.”
The DGHS official further said that health authorities collect the swab sticks used for collecting samples locally and orders are already in place for more of those.
On April 11, the Health Ministry confirmed in a press release that Bangladesh had collected total 92,000 PCR test kits amid the coronavirus pandemic.
According to government figures, as of April 25, of all the kits collected, 21,000 were distributed in different labs and the rest were kept in stock.
However, since then the Health Ministry stopped providing any information about the number of test kits in hand in their daily Covid-19 briefing.
Meanwhile, DGHS’s Sultana told Dhaka Tribune that they are expecting to receive more 100,000 PCR test kits on Friday.
As of Thursday, Bangladesh confirmed 7,667 coronavirus cases with the death toll rising to 168 after five new fatalities were reported.
The fast spreading Covid-19 has so far killed 228,000 people in more than 200 countries and territories.
