Gonoshasthaya requests BSMMU to suspend performance trial of kits
Gonoshasthaya Kendra on Wednesday requested Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) to suspend the performance study of its coronavirus-testing antigen kit due to the detection of some inconsistencies in sample collection procedure.
In a press release on Wednesday, the organisation said it is upgrading the sample collection process identifying the inconsistencies.
Mohib Ullah Khondoker, coordinator of Gonoshasthaya's GR COVID-19 Rapid Dot Blot Project, said, “There’s nothing wrong with our antigen or antibody kits. Antigen kits are tested from saliva. Saliva needs to be collected with extreme caution. If cough or spits remains with the saliva during sample collection, the antigen kit test may not yield accurate results.”
He said they urged the BSMMU authorities to temporarily suspend the performance trial of their antigen kit.
Mohib said they are now working to resolve the problems so that accurate results can be found from the test by properly collecting the sample.
Bijon Kumar Sil, leader of the Gonoshasthaya’s research team that invented the kits, said they have already upgraded the antigen kit so that the results can be found within three-five minutes.
He said the BSMMU authorities should promptly complete the trial of antibody test kit and submit the report to the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) so that it can be used for anti-body test at this critical time of the country.
On 13 May, Gonoshasthaya Kendra submitted the samples of GR COVID-19 Rapid Dot Blot antigen kit to the BSMMU authorities for the performance trial.
Earlier on 30 April, the DGDA gave Gonoshasthaya the permission to get its COVID-19 rapid testing kits tested.
On 17 March, Gonoshasthaya Kendra declared that they had developed a testing kit that can examine samples to detect COVID-19 within 15 minutes, but the kit was still not approved by the authorities concerned.
Earlier on 30 April, the DGDA gave Gonoshasthaya the permission to get its COVID-19 rapid testing kits tested.
The DGDA informed Gonoshasthaya that the performance study of the kits could be done either at the BSMMU or IEDCR.
On 2 May, the BSMMU authorities formed a six-member committee to conduct the performance study of the testing kits as the organisation approached the country’s premier medical university.