In over six months since the first COVID-19 case was detected in the country, WHO continuously supported Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), Bangladesh to expand testing capacity that now relies on 109 laboratories across the country and plans for further expansion are underway.
At the beginning of the outbreak, Bangladesh only had one laboratory ready to do COVID-19 testing, with WHO providing the necessary logistic support such as Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) probes and controls.
To accelerate COVID-19 testing in the country, WHO helped the MOHFW to establish district and field laboratories for COVID-19 equipped with RT-PCR machines and further provided technical guidance and personnel. “Testing