Health minister has no affiliation with procurement of masks: CMSD

The Central Medical Stores Depot or CMSD has threatened to sue the news media and social media users who published reports and posts “defaming” Health Minister Zahid Malik, his son, and top officials over the supply of ordinary masks labelled as N95 ones.

CMSD said in a notice published in newspapers that the reports, which also involved the health services secretary and the director general of DGHS, were “intentional” and had “vested interests”.

“This propaganda involving these people is being conducted intentionally with imaginary political and personal stories,” CMSD Director Brg Gen Md Shahidullah said in the notice

The notice called on everyone including physicians not to be misled by the reports and said the individuals in question have “no affiliation” with the procurement of the masks.

The use of N95 masks is crucial while treating COVID-19 patients and testing samples, according to the health directorate’s personal protective equipment guidelines.

However, the masks CMSD delivered to different hospitals by the end of March were surgical ones, though the packets had the label of “N95”, creating confusion among the doctors. It was later reported in the media.

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chairman of the Mugda General Hospital’s governing body, sent a letter to the DGHS and CMSD director questioning the quality of the masks.

After looking into the matter, Brig Gen Shahidullah in a media briefing on Apr 2 confessed that the delivered masks were ordinary surgical masks and said the packets were labelled N95 “by mistake”.

Elaborating on how it happened, the CMSD director said in the notice that it had received the masks from Bangladeshi firm JMI, which had been supplying medical gear to the government hospitals since before the outbreak.

JMI supplied the masks as ordinary ones but labelled as N95, and CMSD asked for its explanation at the initial stage of the matter. N95 masks are produced in the US only and the country has stopped export to meet domestic demand, according to the notice.

JMI had also admitted its mistake right away and the CMSD director explained the issue to the media.

The matter “should have ended” at that point, Shahidullah said.

“Amid the global COVID-19 crisis, CMSD is following the government procurement laws to combat the health situation. But misleading news defaming the health minister, his son, the health services secretary and Health Directorate DG are being published,” Shahidullah said.

“CMSD states without a doubt that the above mentioned individuals have no affiliation with this procurement process and have no way of benefitting from this, financially or otherwise.

“CMSD is warning the perpetrators that they will be charged under the Digital Security Act if they do not stop such actions,” he added.