While Bangladesh is rather relaxed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a senior health official of the US has opined that the country is at risk of a fourth wave of the coronavirus.
The Country Director of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Bangladesh office, Dr Susan Neely Kaydos-Daniels, made the statement while replying to a question during a background media briefing at the American Centre in the capital on Wednesday morning.
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She said that there was a risk of a fourth wave of Covid in Bangladesh, but it would be to a lower extent.
According to her observations, the people infected by the virus might have developed hard immunity, and thus, the infection rate has been lower in recent times. The other reasons include administering vaccines to a good number of people and the people’s natural immunity.
Dr Susan Kaydos-Daniels said: “Being in one pandemic does not mean that we are safe from another. Looking forward, we need to leverage the gains made in public health during the Covid-19 pandemic and continue to strengthen Bangladesh's capacity to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.”
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A single and isolated case of a novel disease could be the beginning of the next pandemic. “We need to be prepared to prevent, detect, and respond to such cases,” she warned.
The CDC official also stressed the need for continuing to build the public health workforce in Bangladesh, to strengthen surveillance systems and laboratory systems to detect new and emerging pathogens, as well as build infrastructure and skills to respond to all kinds of public health emergencies.
Dr Kaydos-Daniels, however, recognized healthcare professionals as heroes, and said that it was amazing that these people were serving a huge crowd.
During the press briefing, she also warned of AMR (antimicrobial resistance) that might bring dire situations to the fore.
She also mentioned how Bangladesh had been supported at the beginning of 2001, with key support provided to the government to respond to clusters of encephalitis and deaths in several communities.
In Bangladesh, the CDC has been working closely with the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) and the International Center for Diarrheal Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b).
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The CDC has worked with these two organizations in the past to identify the Nipah virus, and introduced polio vaccines, documented the first case of the free-living (also known widely as the “brain-eating”) ameba and so on.
Meanwhile, officials at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) were asked about the possibilities and their preparations.
Additional Director Prof Dr Ahmedul Kabir said that the authorities did not want any fourth wave in the country. But circumstances in neighbouring India were indicating otherwise.
“Whether the fourth wave comes or not, we have completed our possible preparations so that the best possible services can be provided,” he added.
