GK will go for bulk production immediately after getting the approval from the appropriate authority of the government and would be able to supply 100,000 kits per month.
At least 10 government organizations will get locally manufactured Covid-19 test kits as samples for further test, Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder and trustee Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury confirmed on Thursday.“We will handover the samples of kit to 10 government organizations including world health organization for further tests of Covid-19 test kit. The sample kits will be given to Directorate General of Health Services, the Drug Administration, Health Ministry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, IEDCR and some other government’s testing laboratories,” he said in reply to a query.
Chowdhury said a total of 1000 kits will be given to 10 government organizations and each organization will get 100 kits as samples to test the virus.
“The kit sample giving ceremony will take place at the Gonoshasthaya Kendra Guerrilla Commander Major Haider Auditorium in Dhanmondi at 11 am on April 25. We will go for bulk production immediately after getting the approval from the appropriate authority of the government and would be able to supply 100,000 kits per month,” he said in reply to another query.
Chowdhury lamented, “We were supposed to hand over the coronavirus testing kit sample on April 11. But it was suspended due to an electrical disaster.”
The Gonoshasthaya Kendra will produce 100,000 kits in the first phase, with each kit costing Tk. 200-250, and will supply only to the government, the founder of Gonoshasthaya Kendra said.
The country’s first healthcare centre, Gonoshasthaya Kendra, earlier said that it had completed all preparations for the production of COVID-19 test kits as raw materials have arrived at its factory.
Setting up of machinery and other equipment has been completed as per the DDA’s suggestions, he added.
A team of the Directorate of Drug Administration (DDA) visited the Gonoshasthaya Kendra’s factory on March 28 and later it gave the approval to go for sample production.
Earlier, the Gonoshasthaya Kendra declared that they developed a “Rapid Dot Blot”—a cheap testing kit to examine for COVID-19 in 15 minutes.
A technical team of the Gonoshasthaya-RNA Biotech Limited developed the test kit and its cost was estimated to be around Tk. 20 million.
After two months of research, Dr Bijon Kumar Sil, head of the microbiology department at Gono Bishwabidyalay, and his four associates—Dr Nihad Adnan, Dr Mohd Raed Jamiruddin, Dr Firoze Ahmed, and Dr Muhibullah Khandaker—developed the kits.
According to the organisation, Dr Sil has vast experience in inventing test kits to detect the SARS virus. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, he was in Singapore and fought the disease successfully. Two years earlier, he joined the university and has since been working on preventing dengue.
Seven more people died of coronavirus in Bangladesh in the last 24 hours till Thursday, taking the death toll in the country to 127.
