Dengue Outbreak: People suffer for shortage of detection kits in Rangpur
The authorities concerned fear that the kits would finish soon as the number of people wanting to take the test is increasing every day.
Dengue detection test has been disrupted at different hospitals and diagnostic centres in Rangpur over the shortage of kits that are required to detect the fever at the early stage.
The division has been reported with more than one hundred dengue cases so far, but the NS1 antigen test– a test for rapid detection of the fever – has been done with limited kits.
The authorities concerned fear that the kits will be depleted soon because the number of people wanting to take the test is increasing every day.
Rangpur Medical College Hospital, the major health centre in the division, has not opened its dengue test service to everyone because of the lack of detection kits.
The hospital said that at present they are providing the service only to patients who are admitted to the hospital.
“We are conducting tests with few kits and it is not open for all yet,” said Sultan Ahmed, acting director of Rangpur Medical Hospital.
“If someone is admitted to the hospital and asks for dengue test, the hospital will definitely do the test,” he added.
Many diagnostic centres in Rangpur have already run out of dengue detection kits.
Update Diagnostic, a prominent diagnostic centre in the city, had to stop NS1 testing on Thursday because of a shortage of kits.
Some other medical centres including Popular Diagnostic were compelled to stop the test from Saturday for the same reason.
“We were forced to stop the dengue test as there were no kits left,” said Niamul Atiqur Rahman, the co-ordinator of Update Diagnostic Centre.
He assured that the test will be started again as soon as they get required kits.
Labaid Diagnostic Centre and Rangpur Community Hospital have continued dengue test with a limited number of kits while the demand is much higher.
“Our Dhaka office sent only 30 kits on Saturday, which is not enough to fulfil the huge demand,” said Md Apu, executive officer (report) of Labaid Diagnostic Centre, Rangpur branch.
Locals expressed frustration for the lack of dengue test services in hospitals and diagnostic centres as fear of the outbreak spreads.
They urged local authorities to investigate if there are any irregularities behind the situation.
“The matter of why many diagnostic centres are not conducting the dengue test is being investigated, and steps will be taken if any of them does not conduct the test despite having enough kits,” said Asib Ahsan, deputy commissioner of Rangpur.
So far, 125 dengue patients have been treated at different hospitals in Rangpur.
Of them, 79 patients are still undergoing treatment. The rest of the patients have been sent home to continue treatment there.