COVID-19 treatment in Bangladesh is same as what Trump received: health minister

The COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh are receiving the same treatment as US President Donald Trump did after contracting the novel coronavirus, the health minister has said.

Zahid Maleque made the remarks while praising the protocol for COVID-19 treatment at a programme to hand Health Minister Awards 2019 at a Dhaka hotel on Thursday.

“We are giving remdesivir. The treatment here is the same as the one Donald Trump has been given. I thank the doctors for providing such modern treatment in Bangladesh,” he said.

The minister reiterated his claim that Bangladesh was fully prepared to tackle a possible second wave of coronavirus infections during winter. 

US President Donald Trump salutes as he poses without a face mask on the Truman Balcony of the White House after returning from being hospitalised at Walter Reed Medical Center for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) treatment, in Washington, US October 5, 2020. Reuters

“Our people are used to the waves of the rivers Padma, Meghna and Jamuna, and the Bay of Bengal. They are not afraid of any kind of wave, no matter second or third,” he said.

As many as 50 hospitals were given the awards at the programme presided over by Director General of Health Services ABM Khurshid Alam.

Trump, 74, was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last Friday after contracting COVID-19.

He returned as early as Monday to the White House, where doctors continued his five-day course of the intravenous antiviral drug remdesivir.

The US president was also being given the steroid dexamethasone, and an experimental treatment, Regeneron's REGN-COV2, as well as zinc, Vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and aspirin, his doctors have said.