'He needs medicine for madness': Rizvi slams Health Minister Maleque over coronavirus comment

BNP's Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has criticised Health Minister Zahid Maleque over his comment that coronavirus will ‘leave Bangladesh by itself’.

“The health minister is a peculiar person. After the health minister's remark, a person told me we should look for a (medicine to cure craziness), send it to him and hope that it reduces his propensity of uttering nonsense,” Rizvi said during a meeting on Sunday.

Maleque made the comment during a discussion at Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons on Saturday.

Health Minister Zahid Malik briefing the media on the condition of three patients who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Bangladesh five days ago. “They are all responding well to treatment,” he said during the briefing on Thursday. Photo: Mostafigur Rahman

He argued that COVID-19 infections and deaths dropped despite a full-fledged resumption of work in the country. Maleque also said that a vaccine might not be necessary at all to fend off the virus.

Rizvi said, “It's hard to imagine the scale of the spread of coronavirus in villages. I travelled to several districts in the north some days ago. There are no treatment options in new districts which were previously Mahakuma.”

“Kurigram is my hometown. The patients there need to travel to Rangpur Medical College Hospital to get treated.”

“The person who went to Rangpur for treatment is a renowned lawyer, the first female public prosecutor of the country. Initially, it was said that she had heart problems. She died after being taken there in the afternoon. She was later diagnosed with coronavirus,” the BNP leader said.

Rizvi was also critical of the move to discontinue the daily coronavirus briefings. “People could get some information in the daily briefings. But the government feels that it is embarrassing for them, so they stopped it.”

He raised the issue of 'corruption' in the health sector saying, “There's anarchy in the entire health sector because of the health minister. The sector is filled with thieves and fraudsters.”

He pointed out issues involving fake protective equipment and claimed that these misdeeds were being carried out by a ring of fraudsters which came together when Maleque took office.

Rizvi also referred to rumours that connect Maleque’s son to the production of fake masks.