Gonoshasthaya Kendra will wait this week for government’s approval to start testing COVID-19 using its GR COVID-19 Dot Blot kits and begin the tests in the next week.
Gonoshasthaya Kendra trustee Zafrullah Chowdhury told the media on Wednesday that the government was delaying the approval of the kits wasting unusually high time when people wanted to be tested.
He said that they submitted 700 more kits to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University for performance trial tests and were not sure when they would get result.
Earlier on May 13, Gonoshasthaya submitted 200 kits for performance trial.
As they got result from neither the medical university nor the government, Gonoshasthaya announced that it would test COVID-19 for clinical trial from Tuesday.
The programme was, however, suspended as per request of the Directorate General of Drug Administration, according to a release Gonoshasthaya issued on Monday.
“During dengue outbreak past year, the government took only one day to approve such type of kits to detect dengue and they took only seven days to approve Remdesivir, an injection that has many risks, and it is three months our kit, which is an emergency one at this time, has been developed and is yet to get government approval,” he said.
Referring to instance of detection of his COVID-19 infection using the GR COVID-19 Dot Blot kits three days ago, he said that he saved hundreds of people from infection as his test could be done immediately after he fell sick and tested positive.
He said that the Drug Administration requested them not to test with the kit and they would wait this week and then begin the tests.
“We will begin. The government has no right to stop us. They are doing harmful work for people for business purposes,” he said.
Gonoshasthaya-RNA Biotech Limited, a concern of Gonoshasthaya Kendra in Bangladesh, developed the kits named GR COVID-19 Dot Blot kits and claimed that it could test mass people at a cheaper rate.
