Coronavirus infections in the country continue to surge with the authorities allowing more private facilities to conduct Covid-19 tests.
Confirmed cases in Bangladesh rose to 7,667 after another 564 people tested positive in 24 hours to Thursday morning, according to the health authorities.
Five deaths were reported during the same period bringing the body count to 168, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said during its daily virus bulletin.
A total of 4,965 samples, out of the 5,626 collected, were tested in the 29 facilities across the country, according to DGHS Additional Director-General Nasima Sultana.
In a bid to increase the testing capacity, authorities have already allowed private sector healthcare facilities to run Covid-19 tests.
On Thursday, the DGHS said that more private hospitals will be enlisted within a day or two.
Evercare, Square and United were be given the green light after US-Bangla Medical College Hospital, which began testing samples on Wednesday.
The hospitals, however, can only test samples of admitted patients while US-Bangla Medical College can examine samples of outpatients.
DGHS official Sultana said on Thursday that three more private sector healthcare facilities will get the green light soon.
The Labaid Specialized Hospital, Ibn Sina Medical College Hospital in Dhaka and the TMSS Medical College and Rafatullah Community Hospital in Bogra will secure approval within a day or two, according to her.
“Any private hospital which fulfils our conditions, including that for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) lab, will be cleared for running Covid-19 tests,” added the senior DGHS official.
With the coronavirus outbreak in Bangladesh approaching its second month, the testing capacity remains one of the lowest in the world.
With a population of over 160 million, the country has one of the lowest numbers of tests in Asia with just 393 per one million people, according to data compiled by Worldometer.
According to it, Bangladesh has so far tested 64,666 samples since the first cases were reported on March 8.
‘Over 100,000 test kits in stock’
The DGHS assured on Thursday that they had enough Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) kits in stock and the process to import more was underway.
“At present, we have more than 100,000 kits in stock, which are being supplied to the different labs conducting tests,” Additional Director General Sultana said at the daily bulletin.
Moves to import kits have been initiated, she said before adding: “We now can procure a maximum cache of 40,000 kits, since the demand has skyrocketed across the world.”
Speaking to Dhaka Tribune later in the day, the senior DGHS official said that they were expecting to receive another 100,000 PCR test kits on Friday.
