Test seekers swamping BSMMU

Twenty-five-year old Farzana Aktar has been suffering from fever, cough, sore throat, and muscle pain for the last five days.

Suspecting that she was infected with the novel coronavirus, Farzana called IEDCR hotline several times for collecting her samples. She described her problems in details, but the IEDCR did not collect her samples.

Frustrated, she then went to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University's fever unit for test.

"With fever and cough, I came here on Wednesday but failed to get tested as the authorities said they could not collect samples anymore that day. Then I came again at 7:00am today [yesterday]," Farzana told this correspondent standing in a queue.

When Farzana was sharing her experience, it was 11:00am and she was yet to get the ticket for testing Covid-19.

Yesterday, around 1,000 people were standing in line to get tested.

Like Farzana, people with fever and other ailments started lining up from early morning, but only 200-250 people get the chance every day.

The BSMMU authorities said they have nothing to do except saying sorry. They were planning to introduce online ticketing system, they said.

"Now, we can do around 250-270 tests a day. We have one PCR machine to conduct the tests. The DGHS gave us the machine but did not give us biosafety hoods. So, we cannot run our activities in full swing," Nazmul Hasan, assistant Prof of BSMMU's internal medicine department, told The Daily Star.

He said apart from the outdoor patients, there are some indoor patients' samples which too have to be tested.

Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) started the test on February 28. Initially, only those who returned from abroad and had coronavirus symptoms were tested.

The first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the country on March 8, and the testing facilities were expanded from March 30. Later, the facilities were stretched to various government hospitals and then to some private ones.

But people's sufferings did not mitigate as many had to wait for two to three days to get tested.

The BSMMU began Covid-19 tests on April 2, and 4,069 tests were done and 1,160 were found positive until April 28.

Wasim Noor, another fever patient, who came to the hospital for test said the way people stood in the queue was risky.

"There is no distance from each other. If anyone is not contracted, they have a huge chance of getting infected with coronavirus," he said, adding that he had been suffering from fever for the last three days.

"This is inhuman for a patient to stand in the queue for hours to get tested. The government is saying everything is prepared. Is it an example of preparation?" aggrieved Noor said.

He said the hospital authorities should come forward with a plan to reduce people's sufferings.

Contacted, Saif Ullah Munshi, chairman of BSMMU's virology department, said, "We understand the problem, but at the same time we have limitations. We cannot collect samples going beyond our capacity."

There are other labs in the capital, he said, suggesting that people go there for tests, otherwise their sufferings will not reduce. "We can say sorry for their sufferings. We are now planning online ticketing from next week to avert such problem."