Shawdesh Desk:

Many government hospitals in different districts across the country were facing a dengue testing kit shortage as the Directorate General of Health Services couldn’t ensure timely kit supply amid the surge of virus infections.

The management of the hospitals said that they were struggling to manage the situation due to the lack of testing kits amid the high demand for diagnosis facilities.

They said that after suspending kit supply, DGHS asked them to buy kits from the local market immediately, but the importers were now demanding a higher price.

DGHS’s communicable disease control unit is used to supply dengue testing kits to hospitals across the country. As their stock became unavailable, DGHS asked the hospitals to buy kits through a direct procurement process.

Md Ferdous Alam, a resident of Ghatail in Tangail, went to the local upazila health complex on Monday to test for fever, but the hospital asked him to come the next day as they did not have testing kits available at that time.

‘Three of my family members are suffering from a fever at a time. So I wanted to test my fever to know whether it was dengue,’ he said, adding that he did the test at a private clinic near the hospital.

DGHS director (MIS) Professor Md Shahadat Hossain, said that they were trying to ensure supply according to demand, but the demand was higher than their storage.

‘The situation is not to the level where people are not doing dengue tests,’ he said.

Against this backdrop, DGHS in the past 24 hours ending 8:00am on Thursday reported nine more dengue-related deaths and 2,288 hospitalisations across the country.

It took the number of deaths from the mosquito-borne disease to 444 this year, while nearly 94,312 were infected, already the deadliest year since the epidemic was first reported in 2000.

According to DGHS data, on Thursday, at least 8,661 dengue patients were undergoing treatment at different hospitals across the country.

Tangail civil surgeon Md Minhaz Uddin Miah said that not only the hospital at Ghatail dengue testing kits in some other hospitals in the district were also unavailable.

He said that the hospitals were asked to buy kits from the local market on an emergency basis.

Rajshahi divisional health office director Md Habibul Ahsan Talukder said that several hospitals in Rajshahi were asked to buy kits from the local market as the DGHS’s supply was disrupted due to high demand.

‘When the hospitals are trying to buy kits, the buyers are claiming high prices,’ he said, adding that hospitals are forced to spend Tk 30 more than the previous price per kit.

Dengue testing kits in the country are mostly imported from China, said sector insiders.

Importers said that due to the dollar price hike, the price of kits also increased.

They said that kit supply was taking more time because of problems opening letters of Credit and banks not paying suppliers on time.

An official of one of the leading importers, Bio-Trade International, said that Central Police Hospital demanded several thousand dengue testing kits from them, but due to a lack of supply, they could only provide 2,500 kits.

The owner of the business, Md Alimuzzaman, said that they were out of stock at the moment.

‘I have opened two LCs to import dengue kits. If everything goes smoothly, I am expecting to receive the supply in four weeks,’ he said.

Mizanur Rahman, owner of another kit importer, MR Trading International Ltd., however, claimed that there was no shortage of dengue testing kits on the market.

‘Due to management problems, the government hospitals are facing a kit crisis,’ he said.

Keraniganj upazila health and family planning officer Arafatur Rahman said that he was getting kits from the DGHS through personal communication, adding that he has 400 kits in stock at the moment against a daily demand of 30 kits in their hospital.

He said that 70 per cent of the patients who went to the hospital with fever were found to be dengue-positive, with 15 patients requiring hospitalisation on Thursday.