Gonoshasthaya requests BSMMU to temporarily halt validation of part of its Covid-19 testing kits

Gonoshasthaya Kendra on Tuesday sent a letter to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) seeking temporary halt on the validation of its antigen testing kits to detect Covid-19.

The institution made the request as its antigen kits have failed to come up with accurate results due to inconsistencies in collecting samples needed for the test.

Gonoshasthya Kendra, however, said its antibody testing kits do not have any such issues and therefore has requested the BSMMU authorities to validate those fast and submit the results separately to the Directorate General of Drug Administration.

Gonoshasthaya Kendra submitted 500 antibody kits and 500 antigen kits to the BSMMU last month to test their effectiveness.

"You gave us permission to use saliva, based to test the effectiveness of antigen kit because collecting saliva as samples did not require an invasive procedure. But due to the saliva not being collected following proper procedures, the kits are having some complications testing the samples," reads the letter, signed by Dr Mohib Ullah Khondoker, coordinator of GR Covid-19 Rapid Dot Blot project.

"Most of the times, necessary amounts of saliva for antigen test are not present in samples collected or there are other elements mixed with the samples. The monitoring team identified this issue," the letter further says.

Gonoshasthaya also said in the letter that they have already started working on developing a proper procedure of collecting saliva and will inform the BSMMU as soon as they come up with a solution.

The organisation requested to halt the test to determine the effectiveness of antigen test kit until they come up with a solution.

Meanwhile, Dr Mohib Ullah Khondoker told The Business Standard that they will be able to fix the issues with the sample collection within Sunday.