Govt to start antigen testing

Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday said the government was going to take an initiative to start antigen rapid testing in public Covid-19 labs to diagnose the coronavirus.

He was addressing an event marking the handover of medical equipment, a donation from the Taiwan External Trade Development Centre, to the Bangladesh government to fight novel coronavirus outbreak.

"Three types of tests are conducted for diagnosing coronavirus. These are PCR test, antigen test and the rapid antibody test. The government has no plan for now to conduct antibody test. Initiatives are being taken to carry out antigen test alongside the PCR test only at government laboratories," the minister told the programme at the secretariat.

Zahid said all government departments related to Covid-19 were active in bringing vaccines to the country. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would make a right decision at the right time after scrutinising the quality of the vaccines, he added.

On June 3, the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 had recommended introducing the antigen rapid testing in the country. Many health experts have been stressing for months on using both antigen and antibody rapid tests to ease the pressure on pathology service.

Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are easy-to-use paper tests to facilitate testing outside of laboratory settings. The results of the tests are available within a short time ranging from a few minutes to half an hour.

CONFIRMED CASES NEAR 3 LAKH

Meanwhile, 42 more people died from novel coronavirus in 24 hours till 8:30am yesterday, according to a press release of the Directorate General of Health Services.

With this, the death toll from the virus in the country rose to 3,983. The death rate was 1.34 percent.

During the same 24-hour period, as many as 13,382 samples were tested in 91 laboratories across the country and 2,485 of them tested positive for the virus with a positivity rate of 18.57 percent.

The overall positivity rate in the country now stands at 20.40 percent with 297,083 confirmed Covid-19 cases till 8:30am yesterday.

The DGHS release said 3,784 patients recovered from the virus infection during the 24-hour period. With them, the overall recovery rate crossed 61 percent (61.56).

Of the latest deceased, 31 were males and 11 females. Thirty-eight of them died at hospital and four at home.

Two of the dead were aged between 31 and 40, nine between 41 and 50, 12 between 51 and 60 while 19 were aged over 60.