The Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport authorities on Friday said that they were ready to perform more than 3,000 RT-PCR Covid tests a day at the airport’s newly-installed laboratory, six hours before a flight was scheduled to leave for the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE authorities on August 5 mandated that travellers, including the migrant workers, entering the country must carry a Covid negative certificate received within the six hours prior to their flight.
Many Bangladeshi migrant workers intending to return to their UAE workplaces had since demonstrated in Dhaka and elsewhere demanding the installation of a RT-PCR laboratory at the airport.
Shariful Islam Hasan, head of BRAC Migration Programme, said that the delay in installing the facility was utterly disappointing.
Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan, executive director of the airport, said that a reason for the delay was difficulties in site selection, adding that the lab was finally installed inside the airport terminal building instead of the car parking, proposed earlier.
Shahriar Sazzad, HSIA medical officer, said that the six private medical firms employed could perform over 3,000 RT-PCR Covid tests each day.
‘We are ready to provide the service to passengers,’ he added.
On a test basis, 46 Bangladeshi passengers, mostly expatriate workers, were ferried to Dubai in the UAE by the Emirates airline on Wednesday following their Covid tests performed at a mobile RT-PCR laboratory at the airport at their own cost just six hours before their flight.
A senior…