Gonoshasthaya Kendra postpones delivery of Covid-19 test kits

Healthcare organisation Gonoshasthaya Kendra has postponed handing over coronavirus test kits to the government due to technical difficulties in production of the kits.

The organisation made the disclosure on Friday afternoon in a press release issued by its Covid-19 Dot Blot Project Coordinator Dr Muhib Ullah Khandaker.

"We are extremely sorry. Handover of the Covid-19 testing kits has been postponed. The next date will be announced soon," reads the press release.

Gonoshasthaya Kendra was scheduled to hold a press conference over delivering the kits on Saturday. But the conference has also been cancelled as production of the kits has not been completed.

"We have been compelled to stop production as we are facing some technical problems in the factory," Gonoshasthaya Kendra Founder Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury told The Business Standard. 

Apologising for the delay, he added that the next date of handing over the kits could not be confirmed at that moment. 

"After observing everything on Friday and Saturday, we will inform you," he said.

After receiving permission for producing test kits on March 19, Dr Zafrullah had said the raw material for the kit – Rapid Dot Blot – would reach Dhaka in a week from the United Kingdom, and that samples of the test kit would be submitted to the Directorate General of Drug Administration within 15 days for approval.

The kits could be sold in the market within two weeks and 1 lakh kits could be produced in the first batch. The cost of raw material for producing this number of kits was estimated to be Tk10 lakh.