Moudud Ahmmed Sujan

The Covid-19 mutation rate in Bangladesh is faster than the global average rate, says a study based on data of 263 cases of genome sequencing.

There is no chance the coronavirus outbreak will come to an end without proper measures to curb its transmission, leading experts said.

After months-long stalemate, the government has finally given nod to the icddr,b to run phase-III trial of the Chinese vaccine for Covid-19.

The death from Covid-19 jumped yesterday after a month, according to the health directorate data.

While countries around the world are in hot pursuit of a Covid-19 vaccine, with several currently in the final phase of clinical trials, Bangladesh remains far behind in the race as no desperate effort is visible from the government, experts observe.

The health ministry has decided to use rapid testing kits in order to increase the number of daily Covid-19 tests and reduce the burden on RT-PCR based tests.

Nine percent of the Dhaka city dwellers have already been infected with coronavirus and 78 percent of them had no symptoms, according to a study.

The health ministry is going to sit next week to decide phase-III clinical trial of a Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, its Secretary Abdul Mannan said.

At a time when the rate of Covid-19 cases is on the rise in the country, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said the number of new cases and deaths decreased.

It remains a mystery why Bangladesh government is still in a fix about allowing a clinical trial of the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine here when health experts are saying the trial can help the country access the life-saving vaccine quickly and build national capacity for advanced research.

As the government brings changes at the DGHS top end to improve the image of the health sector, tension among officials is apparently causing sluggishness in Covid-19 response and hampering daily activities of the directorate.

Following weeks of controversies and a day after the director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) quit, the government has decided to make some reshuffles at the top end of the directorate.

As the number of Covid-19 tests across the country yesterday dropped to a record in recent times, about 54 percent respondents -- mostly doctors -- of a survey said people were not going for tests due to unavailability and inaccessibility of the testing facilities.

The health directorate might soon announce the standard operating procedure of locking down small zones, ignoring the expert suggestions for sealing larger areas.

As the health ministry asked the health directorate on Wednesday to inform the Covid-19 test results to the patients in three days, officials of the directorate said that would be difficult due to human resource shortage.

The rift between the health ministry and the health directorate over the Regent Hospital scam will seriously hurt the government efforts to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, say experts.

The coronavirus positivity rate in the country has soared in the last few days despite a decline in the number of tests during this period.

The health services division of the health ministry knew that Regent Hospital’s licence had expired years ago but it still went ahead and signed a deal in early March for treating Covid-19 patients there.

The Covid-19 outbreak may prolong for the next several years as the country is not taking scientific measures to control it, said a public health expert.

A little over two months ago, the chief of the country’s health directorate in an interview with an Indian magazine narrated Bangladesh government’s position on Covid-19 testing, saying the tests were free of costs.