An agonising wait for Covid-19 test results

Fifty-year-old man Abdus Salam had been suffering from chronic kidney disease and needed routine dialysis.

As he was not feeling well, the resident of Kanaighat upazila in Sylhet went to a hospital for dialysis but the health staff asked for his Covid-19 test report first.

A weary Salam, on June 1, visited the upazila health complex to give his swab sample. He left his sample there and waited for the result desperately.

Three days passed by and his condition continued to deteriorate.

On June 4, Salam passed away at his home.

The result of his test sample took another three days to arrive. When it finally did on June 8, it showed Salam had coronavirus.

The authorities concerned within a day or two took samples of his family members as well. As of yesterday, they are still awaiting results.

Like theirs, hundreds of swab samples are piling up every day in Sylhet while people are waiting for results of their tests.

So far, 4,586 samples are yet to be processed till Friday in Sylhet division, which includes 2,254 in Sylhet, 999 in Habiganj, 684 in Moulvibazar and 649 in Sunamganj.

Two specialised laboratories for testing Covid-19 samples -- one at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital and other at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology -- have reached their maximum capacity.

Both laboratories, having one Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) machine each are capable of testing a maximum of 376 samples while the daily sample collection is more than 500 on an average, according to officials.

To clear this backlog, hundreds of samples are being sent to different laboratories in Dhaka, and it takes a while to get back those reports, civil surgeons in the districts said. Usually, it takes 3 to 10 days to get reports from the laboratories, they added.

At times, it also takes a long time to be able to give samples at the hospitals, said many locals.

After days of repeated attempts to give samples at Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital, Shoaib Hassan of the city's Uposhohor area was able to do so on June 3. He got the result on June 11, which showed he had tested positive. His wife tested positive at the end of May and he had been going to the hospital for a test since then.

"My mother is also ill. I tried for couple of days to give her samples but to no avail. Finally, I was able to admit her to a private hospital today [yesterday] and doctors took her sample for testing. God knows when we will get the result," he added.

Like him, many continue to live amid uncertainty and keep on waiting for results.

Sakib Ahmed, a resident of the city's Lamabazar area, gave his swab sample at Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital on June 3 and came to know that he tested negative on June 11 from a colleague. He is yet to receive any official message or confirmation from the authorities.

So far, 2,143 people have tested positive in Sylhet division till yesterday. Among them, 46 died, 451 recovered while 203 are undergoing treatment at different hospitals.

4 NEW LABORATORIES

To tackle the backlog, a proposal for four more laboratories in Sylhet division is in the offing, Dr Anisur Rahman, assistant director (disease control) of Sylhet divisional health office, told this correspondent yesterday.

Two labs will be installed at Sheikh Hasina Medical College and Hospital at Habiganj and at Sylhet Agriculture University respectively; while the other two at Sylhet Chest Disease Hospital and Sunamganj Chest Disease Clinic under National TB Programme, the assistant director said.

"It might take 15-30 days to have them ready and with the new laboratories, we believe that we can mitigate the crisis," he said.