The advent of antigenic testing for suspected Covid-19 patients remains uncertain, as fitness officials have not yet begun the kit purchase procedure, obtaining government approval more than a week ago.
The Directorate-General for Health Services (DGHS) intends to invite manufacturers or long-term suppliers of antigen kits capable of assembling the desired standard, but yesterday there was no significant progress in that regard.
“Two kits [provided through two developers] are being tested at the IEDCR. We’ve tried one and we’ll get it soon. Once the procedure is complete, we will introduce the [antigen] test [in public hospitals]. You can’t give any knowledge of express time now,” Professor Meerjady Sabrina Flora, DGHS’ additional CEO, told the Daily Star yesterday.
The delay has left some fitness experts skeptical of the government’s goal of releasing the kit immediately, as they said this had been delayed due to concerns that it would tarnish the government’s pride in handling contagion with an rt-PCR. limited.
On 17 September, the Health Services Division of the Ministry of Health approved the immediate antigen in public gymnasiums after months of bureaucratic exercises.
The resolution came shortly after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent public opinion that the coronavirus pandemic could increase over the next winter.
Bangladesh has so far relied on testing of RT-PCR, the popular gold for covid-19 detection, since the pandemic hit the country in March. The country ranks last in the world in terms of Covid-19 tests due to its population of more than 160 million.
Only one suspected case is analyzed for approximately 100,499 people, according to recent knowledge from the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).
The resolution to initiate antigen verification was made primarily to strengthen verification capacity in district hospitals where RT-PCR services are not available and also in specialized hospitals to treat critical patients.
An antigen check shows whether a user is recently inflamed with a pathogen and regularly arrives to take a saliva sample if a patient is severely inflamed and contagious within 15 minutes.
Although an antigen control is less accurate than a full PCR analysis, the main benefits are the rapid effects and the ability to use it in situ, according to the experts.
Globally, only a few of a hundred companies have expanded the immediate control kits with the right power and sensitivity and some countries use them. India uses antigen kits for large controls.
On Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) legalized immediate antigen-based diagnostic tests and announced that it would conduct some 120 million tests for low- and middle-income countries at a maximum of $5 according to the unit.
Initially, the government will use 3,000 day-compatible antigen kits in a limited number of public hospitals. This figure will be more than 10,000 in 10 specialized hospitals and 39 district hospitals where RT-PCR verification machines are not available, according to the “Rapid Antigen Test Proposal” list through the Ministry of Health that established the verification protocol.
“We sent the proposal. It includes protocol: who will be tested and when, etc. ,” Professor Tahmina Shirin, director of the IEDCR, told the Daily Star on Sunday.
The DGDA has established a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 95% for the approval of any antigen kit, as proposed.
The Daily Star received a copy of the proposal that “no more than two or three” organizations worldwide have the ability to meet the DGDA standard, which is from the U. S. FDA.
URGENT NEED
However, experts insisted on the prompt release of antigen-based kits.
“[The use] of an immediate antigen kit is urgent to smoothly separate suspected carriers of the virus. It will also ensure that non-covid-19 patients receive timely treatment, ”Professor Ridwanur Rahman, an infectious disease specialist, told the Daily Star on Sunday.
“If a kit shows a sensitivity of 50%, it means that the kit will run into at least 50% of patients and this will be of great help in suppressing transmission of the virus. “
He believes that the government deserves to have allowed the use of Gonoshasthaya Kendra’s immediate verification kits instead so as not to meet the desired standard.
“When we have few options, we have to use what we have. Many African countries, such as Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire, use their own immediate detection technologies. If the [Gonoshasthaya] kits were acceptable, at least 50% of those may have detected instances,” he said.
Professor Nazrul Islam, a member of the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, told the Daily Star on Sunday that the Directorate-General for Drug Administration (DGDA), which will take into account the certificate of non-objection based on certain criteria, can simply review all the criteria taking into account the veracity of the scenario and the limited options.
“But there has to be a protocol to make the most of the quick kits,” Professor Nazrul added.
DAILY ACCOUNTS
Yesterday, 12,869 samples were tested across the country and 1,488 new infections were recorded. With the new infections, the total number of other people inflamed is 3,62,043, according to a press release issued through the DGHS.
Twenty-six other people died of Covid-19 in the country from 24 a. m. to 8:00 yesterday, bringing the death toll to 5,219.
The mortality rate is 1. 44%, while the overall positivity rate is 18. 72%, according to the press.