Gonoshasthaya Kendra unveiled its COVID-19 testing kit, which would be sold at an affordable price of no more than Tk 300, on Saturday amid the absence of representatives of the concerned government authorities.
Gonoshasthaya plans to hand over samples to Directorate General of Drug Administration on Sunday for approval, officials said.
US centres for disease control and prevention representative, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University officials were present at the unveiling programme at Gonoshasthaya Kendra Hospital in the capital’s Dhanmondi.
Gonoshasthaya-RNA Biotech Limited, a concern of Gonoshasthaya Kendra in Bangladesh, developed this affordable kit applying a method which it named Rapid Dot Blot to test COVID-19.
Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder Zafrullah Chowdhury said that they invited health minister, Directorate General of Drug Administration officials to the programme to handover some samples, but none of the government officials appeared there.
Only representative from CDC and BSMMU were present at the programme.
Zafrullah said that they were ready to produce one lakh testing kits, subject to the approval of the concerned authorities.
Earlier, Zafrullah had complained that the unwillingness of the concerned authorities and bureaucratic complexities delayed their efforts to develop the kit to detect the novel coronavirus infection and they had to ask for prime minister’s office intervention for obtaining permission for developing the kit for COVID-19 sample testing from the directorate general of health services.
The kit development programme coordinator Muhib Ullah Khondokar told New Age that they would approach the Directorate General of Drug Administration on Sunday and handover their samples for approval.
He said that they completed internal validation where they found that their kits were over 90 percent successful in detecting COVID-19 infections.
‘Now it requires external validation. That is why we are handing over samples to CDC and BSMMU,’ he added.
When approached, Director General of DGDA Major General Md Mahbubur Rahman told New Age that Gonoshasthaya Kendra has just developed a product which is yet to be approved.
‘Unless it is an approved product, how can we attend the unveiling programme,’ he said.
Mahbubur said that Gonoshasthaya must apply for approval in due procedure, then the authorities will take proper measures for validation through authorized third party.
During the SARS outbreak, Bangladeshi scientist Bijon Kumar Sil, along with some of his associates, had developed the method of detecting the virus.
Bijon said, ‘Their kits will take no more than five minutes to detect the novel coronavirus in the human body.’
Members of the inventory teams of Gonoshasthaya said their method would be swift and cost-effective in detecting COVID-19 patients at a wider level.
Muhib said that each kit will cost not more than TK 300 and they are not planning to produce it commercially.
‘We will only go for more production if the government asks for that,’ he added.
