Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Hossain has ordered dengue test kits to be distributed across the country to tackle the current outbreak. He gave the instruction on Thursday at a ceremony at Kurmitola Multicare Specialised Hospital in Dhaka, where 500,000 dengue NS1 rapid diagnostic test kits were handed over through STRIDES, a programme funded by the US government, Sarabangla reports.
The kits were handed to the minister by Trishita Maula, the US chargé d'affaires in Bangladesh. All of them will go straight to the Central Medical Stores Depot (CMSD) and then, through the Directorate General of Health Services, to every district and upazila hospital according to need, the minister said.
Besides the new kits, he said, the public sector now holds enough dengue antigen kits and IV saline, so the health department is ready to provide testing and treatment wherever cases rise.
The government is considering a dengue vaccine, he said, but because it is expensive its effectiveness and safety must be assured. Talks are under way with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Gavi, and a final decision will follow international guidelines.
Additional secretary Md Rafiqul Islam of the Health Services Division, Professor Dr Md Zahid Raihan, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, hospital director Brigadier General Md Saidur Rahman and officials from the US embassy and the health ministry attended, and later visited the hospital's dengue ward and diagnostic laboratory.
Photo: Press Information Department / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: Sarabangla
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