Country has 2,500 coronavirus detection kits: Health minister

Bangladesh has 2,500 sets of kits to help detect coronavirus, said Health Minister Zahid Malik on Tuesday.

The minister said this while addressing a programme at his office on the occasion of the Chinese embassy's handover of a treatment protocol guidebook and 500 sets of kits to Bangladesh in a bid to prevent the outbreak of coronavirus.

 "There is no crisis of kits for detecting the virus now as the number of kits has reached 2,500 with the addition of 500 more received from China," he said.

The country's health sector has all-out preparation to prevent the virus. Since January 21, more than 3 lakh people, who arrived in Bangladesh from different countries, have been screened at airports. Of them, 83 suspects of carrying the virus went through tests to check for coronavirus.

No one in the country has tested positive yet, Zahid said.

If any coronavirus-infected patient enters the country or more than one person catches the virus, the Kuwait Bangladesh Friendship Government Hospital has been kept ready for their treatment. 

"As the Chinese treatment protocol alongside our local one has reached our hands, there is nothing to worry about the treatment of coronavirus," he added.

IEDCR chalks up three-tier preparation plan

The Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has made a three-level preparation plan to fight coronavirus.

Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora, director of the IEDCR, told The Business Standard, "After the new coronavirus had been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organisation, all people concerned in the country were asked to be ready to prevent any possible outbreak.  If it is declared as a pandemic, there will not be much difference in the preparation."

"We have started working to face any emergency situation. A three-level national preparation plan has been chalked up to fight coronavirus keeping in mind three different situations – no patient, a few patients and many patients across the country." 

Considering Bangladesh's perspective, a coronavirus-infected patient might enter the country from any country any time.

"In the primary level, we are working on how to detect and quarantine him then."

If a patient is detected, he will be treated in the hospitals where isolation wards have been opened.

In this case, a big task will be to find out how he catches the virus and where he will be kept. Such planning will be made in the second level preparation, she said.

As part of the third stage planning, if the virus spreads across the country, social distancing measures, such as the lockdown of a town from where the virus spreads and the shutdown of some busy areas to avoid public gatherings, might be taken.

The changes will come in the preparation plan depending on the situation, Flora said.