BRAC to set up 50 COVID-19 booths in Dhaka in weekly

BRAC will install 100 sample collection booths in the united states in a bid to greatly help speed up the federal government fight against coronavirus.

The NGO is assisting Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) to set up walk-in sample collection booths in areas susceptible to coronavirus outbreak in the united states, said a news release on Tuesday. 

“At least 50 kiosks will be installed in Dhaka by in a few days to help increase the procedure of sample collection. Fifty more kiosks will be setup in the united states soon,” it added.

Based on the DGHS directives, BRAC happens to be recruiting medical technologists, installing booths, collecting samples and transferring those samples to designated testing labs. The DGHS can be assisting BRAC in training technologists and providing sample collection kits to the organisation. 

A memorandum of understanding will soon be signed in this regard between BRAC and the DGHS, added the news release.

“While booths set up at hospitals will be operated by respective hospital staff, two trained medical technologists from BRAC will be collecting samples at the booths create elsewhere. They will accumulate samples from suspected COVID-19 patients from 9am to 12pm Saturday through Thursday.” 

The press release further said, “Each day, technicians can collect samples from 40 persons having common symptoms of COVID-19 including fever, dry cough, fatigue, sore throat and respiratory difficulties. Once collected, the samples will be sent to testing facilities designated by the DGHS. Before that, suspected patients will need to fill-up forms approved by the DGHS providing private information including phone numbers.”

Test outcomes will be sent to respective individuals via texts to the phone number they are stipulated to supply during sample collection at the kiosks.

Associate Director of BRAC Health, Nutrition and Population Programme Morseda Chowdhury said, “We will create 100 walk-in kiosks across 19 risky regions to expedite the government’s initiative of scaling up testing capacity together with the government's ongoing activities. Half of the kiosks will be create in Dhaka.”

By May 11, Chowdhury said, 17 kiosks have already been installed at 14 spots in Dhaka according to the DGHS directive and that work on installing more booths is in progress. 

The institutions where in fact the kiosks are already in procedure include Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib Memorial KPJ Specialised Hospital & Nursing College, Sheikh Hasina Burn and COSMETIC SURGERY Institute, Government Unani and Ayurvedic Medical College and Hospital and Uttara Adhunik Medical College. Besides this, kiosks have started functioning at community centres situated in Dhaka city corporation areas (Naya Paltan, Bashabo, Kamrangirchar, Naya Bazar, Jatrabari and Lalbagh).  Two of these are next to slums to serve the low-income population.  Few more will cover regions of city corporations such as Uttara, Mogbazar, Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Uttarkhan, Dakkhinkhan and Baunia. 

Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud inaugurated a kiosk on the Dhaka Reporters Unity premises focused on acquire samples from journalists for COVID-19 tests on Monday. 

Another kiosk will be inaugurated at the National Press Club soon.