Khaleda Zia’s condition stable: BNP

Khaleda Zia’s condition stable: BNP

Health condition of opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia is stable, said the party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Addressing a press conference at the party chairperson’s Gulshan office in Dhaka, Fakhrul said that Khaleda Zia’s condition did not deteriorate after her release from hospital in July.

He said that Khaleda Zia is scheduled to take her second dose of Covid-19 vaccine on August 19.

On July 19, Khaleda Zia took the first dose of Moderna Covid vaccine.

She took the vaccine shot at Sheikh Russel Gastro Liver Institute and Hospital in the capital’s Mohakhali area.

On April 11, BNP chief tested positive for Covid-19 and she was admitted to Evercare Hospital on April 27.

A 10-member medical board, headed by Professor Shahabuddin Talukder, was formed for the treatment of Khaleda at Evercare Hospital a day after her admission there.

She tested negative for Covid-19 on May 8, 27 days after she contracted the deadly virus.

On June 19, Khaleda Zia got back home from the hospital after 53 days of treatment for Covid infections and other health complications.

Khaleda, who was released from jail on an executive order on conditions, was under treatment at the hospital as the government rejected a plea of her family for allowing her to go abroad for advanced treatment.

According to her family and doctors, alongside post-Covid complications, Khaleda also suffered from severe and uncontrolled rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cough-variant asthma and an autoimmune disorder that damages moisture-producing glands making it difficult to produce saliva and tears, with a need for bilateral knee replacement.

On May 5, the BNP chairperson’s younger brother Shamim Eskander submitted the application to home minister Asaduzzaman Khan seeking permission to send her abroad for better treatment.

On May 9, Shamim told reporters that the government had rejected the application as Khaleda was a convict and there was no instance of allowing a convict to go abroad for treatment, though there were precedents of such permission in the country.

Khaleda was released from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University’s prison cell on March 25, 2020, initially for six months, on an executive order on condition that she would take medical treatment at home and would not leave the country.

Her release was later extended twice on same condition.