Enamul Hafiz Latifee writes,
The COVID-19 emerged during
December 2019 at Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China has infected more than 722,900
people claiming 34,200 lives so far till 29 March 2020 just after causing first
death on 11 January 2020, in a very short time, literally within 2 months 18
days only and counting more at every single second, spreading worldwide at an exponential
rate. The trace to COVID-19 takes us on 31 December 2019, when the World
Health Organization (WHO) was alerted to a group of pneumonia patients in
China. After one week, on 07 January 2020, the Chinese authority confirmed identifying
a new type of Coronavirus that caused pneumonia and named it as 2019‑nCoV. On 11
February 2020, the WHO named it COVID-19 and on 11 March 2020, WHO Director-General,
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic as it
infected 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people lost their lives till
then.
 |
| Typical shape of Coronavirus. Source: National Geographic |
Bangladesh, the world’s 8th
largest populated country with 165.55 million people having a population
density of 1,121.50 per square kilometer, officially reported its first three
COVID-19 cases on 08 March 2020 by Professor Dr. Meerjady Sabrina Flora,
Director, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR). Since
then, IEDCR and other organizations performed the Polymerase Chain Reaction
(PCR) test on 1,076 individuals ranging from 50 to 110 persons daily and found
forty-eight COVID-19 positive people among whom 15 had recovered and 5 had died,
surprisingly enough, there was no single COVID-19 case had been found on 28 and
29 March 2020, raising a question over the coverage of tests being conducted. However,
the print news media of Bangladesh are constantly reporting few more deaths
everyday terming them showing COVID-19 like symptoms during their deaths, but
these claims are of uncertainty as IEDCR was not able to test their blood
samples at many occurrences. Meanwhile, the WHO has classified Bangladesh’s
COVID-19 spread as “Locally Transmitted”. Realizing the urgency of preparedness
and responding to the pandemic, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) of Bangladesh has drafted and published 17
Guidelines so far, covering national preparedness, individual-level prevention
procedures, home care of COVID-19 mild symptoms showing persons, standard
operating procedures for hospitals, patients’ biological and other waste
handlings, and many other fundamental aspects. However, it is worrisome to
observe that the mortality rate in Bangladesh is 10.42% due to COVID-19 that is
terribly higher than any other SAARC Countries, followed by Afghanistan that
has COVID-19 mortality rate at 3.33% till today (Table-
1).
On 25 March 2020, while addressing the
nation on the occasion of the Independence and National Day, Bangladesh Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina made the plea by saying, “We won in 1971 against our
enemy by standing shoulder to shoulder. Fighting Coronavirus is also a war and
in this war, your responsibility is to stay home. If the Almighty wants, we
shall win the war with everyone’s efforts”. Riding on the exact directions
provided, Bangladesh should take the WHO’s extensively explained 8 major pillars
at its publication “Operational Planning Guidelines To
Support Country Preparedness And Response” very seriously (Figure- 1).
x
Furthermore, the WHO has segregated these
eight major pillars into 3 levels of priority steps and actions, i.e., Basic
Level, Developing Level, and Sustainable Level. At the Basic Level, a country
is suggested to map current capabilities and establish actions based on pre-existing
plans, while, at the Developing Level, a country is recommended to broaden the scope
of actions and deploy additional resources, and to be at the Sustainable Level,
the country should gain the ability of systematic monitoring and adjusting
readiness and response plans as appropriate. Revisiting the immediate steps suggested
by the WHO in Operational Planning Guidelines and Bangladesh’s current
developments on Coronavirus, the following recommendations are made to sharpen the
country’s strategies in this battle with COVID-19.
Testing Facilities to
be made available up to the District Level
Along with IEDCR, 3 other
organizations- Institute of Public Health (IPH), Dhaka Shishu Hospital (DSH),
and Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (BITID) have
started testing the blood samples for COVID-19 detection very recently. However,
as 3 of the testing facilities are located in Dhaka and 1 in Chittagong, there
is a very high possibility that many COVID-19 infected persons may go
undetected creating threats further on the entire population. This may also cause
failure in harnessing positive results through the declared partial lockdown in
the country from 26 March to 04 April 2020, as the existing institutional
resources of these 4 organizations may not be enough to offer country-wide
testing services more frequently. In such a case, South Korean ready-experience
of setting up “Phone Booth” look-like quick COVID-19 examination facilities taking
only 7 minutes to perform the whole examination process can be the light of
hope for Bangladesh. Addressing this criticality, DGHS can consider seeking the
cooperation of Embassy of the Republic of Korea to Bangladesh for setting up
this COVID-19 examining Phone Booths here at 64 districts in Bangladesh, the
government can also work on transferring the know-how for enabling more human
resources for operating these facilities.
Readying the Upazilla
level Hospitals with Isolation Units
It has been learned from the
“National Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19, Bangladesh” that 3
hospitals of Dhaka city- Kurmitola, Kuwait Moitree, and IDH, have been selected
for managing the patients in isolation, and around 500 hospitals will be
prepared for initial care of the COVID-19 patients with mild illness. However,
as the population density of Bangladesh is one of the highest in the world, so
the existing central isolation system at the national or district level would
not give any edge. In the way of bringing a COVID-19 infected individual from a
corner of the country to the centre would create scopes of spreading viruses at
many layers of transportations. In addition, all the 500 hospitals should be
readied at the quickest pace with Ventilators and sufficient 3 layered Personal
Protective Equipments (PPEs) following the practices of China could be made
available for frontline Doctors, Nurses, and other Health Workers.
Incentivizing the Manufacturers
to make Essentials for preventing the spread of COVID-19
On 27 March 2020, The United States
President Donald Trump has ordered General Motors to make ventilators for Coronavirus
patients, on the other side, on 20 March 2020, Prime Minister of Canada Justin
Trudeau had launched Canada’s Plan to Mobilize Industry to fight COVID-19, that
orients new measures directly supporting businesses to rapidly scale up
production or retool their manufacturing lines to develop critical health and
safety supplies and equipment, including sanitization products, personal
protective equipment, diagnostic and testing products, and disease tracking
technologies in Canada that will support the battle against Coronavirus. It is
praiseworthy that, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also announced Taka
5,000 crore incentive package for export-oriented businesses that could only be
disbursed in the form of wages and salaries for workers and staffs. Similarly, Bangladesh
Government may also think of offering stimulus package for mobilizing the manufacturing
hubs in making ventilators, face masks and shields, hand gloves, sanitizers,
PPEs, testing kits, etc. leaving no scope for scarcity of these essentials that
can be seen in the market, home, and hospital.
Strictly monitoring the
movement of Quarantined Individuals
Till 29 March 2020, Bangladesh has
quarantined 53,442 people among whom 24,959 individuals have already obtained
release notes from the authority. But, the news media constantly posted in the last
several days that home quarantined people at many places are going free and
visiting relatives’ houses, markets, and religious places, crafting increasing threats
for localities. Community-level awareness building program has to be launched
immediately followed by a strict monitoring system enacted by the local police
force to enable quarantine as a proper measure to slow down the spread of
COVID-19.
The entire world is now at the
stake of uncertainty, and the people of Bangladesh have the common belief that
this critical situation will not last long if steps taken by the government are
synched with the private sector initiatives, propelled with home-grown
technologies, and communicated with the communities at right time.
Enamul
Hafiz Latifee is Deputy Secretary, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(DCCI). Can be reached at: ehlatifee@dhakachamber.com.
