Bangladesh on high alert over coronavirus fear

The health ministry has started preparations for treating returnees infected with coronavirus at restricted health facilities in the capital as well as at the district-level general hospitals, government officials said. After the weekly cabinet meeting at the Cabinet Division, prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday asked all concerned to ensure that everyone coming from China or Hong Kong was properly screened. ‘The prime minister has asked all concerned to remain alert and make sure that there were arrangements for quarantine at all ports for the screening of the passengers coming from China or Hong Kong,’ cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told a press briefing. The Directorate General of Health Services earlier on Monday morning instructed the civil surgeons and the medical college hospital directors to open a five-bed isolation unit at all district general hospitals and medical college hospitals for providing treatment to suspected coronavirus patients. DGHS director general Abul Kalam Azad in a video conference with the civil surgeons and medical college hospital directors issued the directives. The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, the disease-monitoring arm of the government, requested people to call its hotlines or nearby hospitals if symptoms of coronavirus—pneumonia, cold, sneezing, coughing and fever—have been found in any patients returning from abroad. The IEDCR hotlines are: 01937000011, 01937110011, 01927711784, and 01927711785.