Government to impose fees on coronavirus tests

COVID-19 tests at government facilities will no longer be free as the finance ministry has approved a health ministry proposal to impose fees on the tests.

Once the decision becomes effective, patients will have to pay Tk 200 per test if they visit the kiosks to give samples.

The fees will be Tk 500 in case of home sample collections.

The government is likely to issue the notice on the fees on Monday, Health Services Secretary Md Abdul Mannan said on Sunday, declining to give further details. 

Bangladesh is conducting RT-PCR tests to detect the coronavirus in swab samples.

It has set up 68 labs for the tests as the number of infections and deaths have continued to surge.

Some private hospitals are also conducting the tests. The government has fixed the rate at Tk 3,500 per test at the private hospitals. 

Now the country is conducting tests on about 18,000 samples daily. The government is supplying the testing kits. 

It has confirmed nearly 138,000 coronavirus cases by conducting tests on over 730,000 samples until Sunday morning. 

The government has also finalised antibody test policy. The rapid testing kits cannot be used to diagnose the novel coronavirus infection, but to determine if a person has antibodies created in them to fight the virus.