With the coronavirus outbreak in Bangladesh pushing towards the second month, the testing capacity remains one of the lowest in the world.
The constraint is posing a real danger to the lives of millions in the densely-populated country, officials and victims say.
Until Wednesday, 59,701 people were tested in Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people.
The number of tests conducted in the last three days was - 3,812 on Monday, 4,332 on Tuesday and 4,968 on Wednesday, according to the office of the state-controlled Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The testing rate per million people in Bangladesh is 363 whereas it is 559 in India and 751 in Pakistan.
In the USA, the rate is 17,885 and in Italy it is 30,547.
The low test scenario resulted from the poor preparations as well as dearth of testing facilities and testing kits.
There is also a sense of panic, and taboo among both patients and health workers about the testing.
Those who are tested are allegedly facing serious harassments when they go to the hospitals designated to deal with coronavirus patients.
Narrating the bitter experience, a student of Jahangirnagar University, whose father has been admitted to a hospital dedicated to Covid-19 treatment, said they had failed to have the patient tested even after getting to several places.
"When my father had high fever, with pain in throats and was vomiting, we kept calling the hotline of IEDCR for four hours for getting him tested. And then someone received the call just to tell us that they could not conduct the test on that day as they did not have kits in their stocks. Then we rushed to the Suhrawardy Hospital with my ailing father but they said they had the limit of 250 tests for a single day and it was over for that day. From there we managed to go to the testing centre of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital and learnt that they were closed for the day," the student said.
Officials of the health directorate admitted that the country was in dire need of testing kits.
The national technical committee on corona, on Tuesday recommended the government procure half a million testing kits on an emergency basis.
"We have also recommended expanding the number of testing facilities. Presently, testing is being conducted in 26 centres, including four private sector facilities. The number of testing facilities should be increased and every district should have a lab to test the virus," an official said.
"It really sounds strange if the national committee on corona talks about the procurement of half a million testing kits and expansion of testing facilities when the pandemic is about to enter the third month since the first case was detected in the country in early March. So far we have heard all about preparations on testing, isolation and treatment", said one of the sufferers.
