Bangladesh health minister, official say people are averse to COVID-19 testing

Amid concerns over a lack of COVID-19 testing in Bangladesh, government high-ups have claimed members of the public are not turning out for the test in the new facilities outside Dhaka.

Speaking at an online briefing on Wednesday, Health Minister Zahid Malik urged the public not to hesitate when it comes to getting tested for the virus.

“Just having these testing facilities won’t suffice. The people must spontaneously go there to undergo tests. They must come forward. I don’t want anyone to not be tested. Those who have symptoms need to get tested,” he said.

“Get tested often and keep yourselves and society safe,” the minister appealed.

Habibur Rahman, the director of Management Information System at the Directorate General of Health Services, said, “Not sufficient numbers of samples have been collected in the hospitals outside Dhaka. It means the [suspected] patients aren't interested in the tests.”

MA Hasan Chowdhury, the director of the Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases or BITID in Chattogram’s Faujdarhat, however, presented data that contradict Habibur’s claim.

Hasan said they ran tests on specimens from 42 people, including four on Wednesday.   

The government’s disease control agency IEDCR, which had been the lone facility with the capacity to run coronavirus testing until last week, has received a total of 802,033 calls related to COVID-19, according to Habibur.

The IEDCR said it has collected specimens from 1,759 patients and detected 54 infections.