Rapid testing to get a nod

Since the onset of the pandemic in the country, shortage of testing kits has been a major setback in containing the spread of the coronavirus, made worse by the government's decision to levy fees on Covid-19 tests. According to a recent report published in this daily, the health ministry, in an attempt to cut through red tape, has finally decided to use rapid testing kits (which is yet to receive final approval from the government) in order to increase the number of daily Covid-19 tests and reduce the burden on RT-PCR based tests.

Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are easy-to-use paper tests to facilitate testing outside of laboratory settings within a few minutes to half an hour. These are of two kinds—one that is antigen-based, which is an alternative to the sophisticated RT-PCR tests for detecting the presence of the virus itself, and another that is antibody-based, to examine past existence of the virus and a possible immune response to the infection. Experts including those at the Gonoshasthaya Kendra, whose doctors devised a low-cost, homegrown kit, have long emphasised the importance of rapid testing. Unfortunately, until now, their requests have fallen on deaf ears. Along with the consideration to implement RDTs, the government has reduced testing fees—Tk 100 for samples collected from government-designated centres and Tk 300 for samples collected from homes, which were Tk 200 and Tk 500 respectively. Although we strongly feel the tests should be provided free of cost, we appreciate the move to reduce the costs to make it more accessible to the masses.

We hope the process of approval from the government is speeded up, without any further bureaucratic delay. Rapid tests will enable us to test more people, more efficiently, and hence give us a more reliable reading of where we stand in our protracted battle against Covid-19.