Amid concerns about the scarcity of Personal Protective Equipment for health workers at public hospitals, Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday claimed that the government has adequate PPE in stock to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

"…We now have adequate numbers of PPE and testing kits. We are receiving 30,000-40,000 kits every day… ," he said at a press briefing at the secretariat.

He said his ministry was getting the test kits from local sources and that some private companies assigned were making them.

The minister said they have around 2 lakh PPE in stock and the consignment of 2 lakh more, procured from different countries, would arrive this month. The ministry is distributing 20,000 to 30,000 PPE a day to hospitals across the countries, he said.

Zahid said that they were well-prepared and that nobody makes PPE beforehand. China, which manufactures PPE, did not have enough PPE during the coronavirus outbreak.

The minister said they wanted to get PPE from China long before Bangladesh recorded its first Covid-19 case, but China refused.

He claimed that there was no necessity of PPE now but the government was producing thousands.

"I don't know whether any state has thought about it three months ahead.

"No one can prepare for everything in advance," the minister said.

Experts, however, said there was no room for complacency and that health workers' demand for PPE rose sharply after the first Covid-19 case was confirmed in the country.

Many public hospitals across the country set up isolation units for possible coronavirus patients but lacked necessary resources and equipment.

Doctors, nurses, and hospital staffers were finding it hard to keep working, they said.

Health workers staged protests at some hospitals over the last few weeks.

Nearly 200 interns of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital on March 19 halted work and said they would not work unless the hospital gave them protective gear.

Prof Nazrul Islam, virologist and former vice-chancellor of BSMMU, said "Such type of complacency may turn the situation grave. We need a lot of PPE.

"It is not like everybody needs to wear PPE right now, but we have to prepare for any situation," he told The Daily Star.

Citing the death of a patient at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on March 14, he said if there were sufficient PPE, the patient would not have died without treatment. The doctors were scared and they stayed away from the patient.

"From the beginning, they [the government] have been saying there is no need to have so many [Covid-19 testing] kits. But we are seeing an acute shortage of kits," Prof Nazrul said.

Prof MA Faiz, former director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said, "Maybe he [the minister] has said this as there are 33 [Covid-19] cases in the country. He cannot go beyond the report he gets… .

"As we are not testing enough, there remains a doubt [about the reality]. The situation in other countries and different estimations are causing us to worry."

MORE TESTING LABS

Minister Zahid said Covid-19 testing labs would be set up in some important hospitals across the country within the next few days.

"We already have such testing labs… we will set up some more in important hospitals, including the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and BSMMU."

"We had preparation and that is why we managed to quarantine 20,000 people," he claimed.

He also urged returnees from abroad to go into self-quarantine and inform authorities concerned about it.

"Do not harm the people of the country," he urged them.