Suspended flights cause delay to Gonoshasthaya testing-kit production

Gonoshasthaya Kendra is facing uncertainty over the availability of raw material needed for the production of coronavirus testing kits, due to the seven-day flight suspensions between Bangladesh and the UK.

"We are considering an alternative route - from England via china to Bangladesh," said Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, the founder of the Gonoshasthaya Kendra.

"Our workforce is on standby. As soon as we get the raw material, we will go into production," he said, adding that it would take about a week to supply the sample kits.

Reflecting on the challenges, Zafrullah said, "It was difficult to make international transactions, since bank operations are open for only two hours."

According to his earlier announcements, the raw material - Rapid Dot Blot - was supposed to be flown in by now.

"We are ready to immediately supply at least 20,000 units of Covid-19 testing kits within a day after getting the official approval for sales," Zafrullah told The Business Standard.

Gonoshasthaya Kendra will provide a kit at Tk350. The test report will be available within 5-15 minutes.

However, the last flights to the UK left Dhaka on Mar 29 and returned the following day. The flight suspensions came into effect from today.