Don’t get misled, panicked by coronavirus rumours on social media: IEDCR director

Rumours about the new coronavirus are spreading on social media in Bangladesh amid a deadly outbreak in China, the chief of the government’s disease control agency has said.

Meerjady Sabrina Flora, the director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research or IEDCR, has urged the people not to get confused or panicked by the rumours.

“Rumours are spreading on social media about many types of treatment. But no specific treatment for the disease is available just yet. So, the people must not get confused or panicked by such publications,” she said while briefing the media at the institute in Dhaka on Wednesday on the steps to reduce the risks of an outbreak.

The IEDCR conducted tests on 43 patients but no one was found to be carrying the virus, she said.

The institute, the sole provider of the coronavirus test in the country, is also sending samples from the patients to the World Health Organization for confirmation.

The authorities brought back 312 Bangladeshis from China’s Wuhan, a city in the epicentre of the outbreak, on Saturday.

As many as 11 of the evacuees, including a child with fever and his family members, have been kept at the Combined Military Hospital and three others at the Kurmitola General Hospital for flu-like symptoms that are similar to those of coronavirus, Flora said.

The rest of the returnees have been quarantined at Ashkona Hajj Camp.