Abul Kalam Azad (doctor)

Abul Kalam Azad is a Bangladeshi doctor and who was the Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[1] He was a former additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services.^[2]

Early life

Azad was born in 1960 in Nilphamari District, East Pakistan, Pakistan.^[3] He completed his MBBS at the Dhaka Medical College.^[3]

Career

Azad was additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services from 2011 to 2016.^[3] He founded Sandhani National Eye Donation Society.^[3] He was the additional director general of administration at the Directorate General for Health Services.^[3]

On 1 September 2016, Azad was appointed the Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services.^[3] He replaced Professor Deen Mohd. Noorul Haq.^[4] He resigned in July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh after Regent Hospital was caught with fake COVID-19 tests.^[5] Azad was criticized for the scam.^[5][6] The directorate had blamed the Ministry of Health for pressuring it to provide a license to Regent Hospital.^[7] He was replaced by Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam.^[8]

Azad was sued in the Regent Hospital scam case.^[9] In October 2021, Justice K. M. Emrul Kayesh granted bail to Azad in a case filed over the fake tests by Regent Hospital.^[10] The hospital had been scamming patients from the National Institutes of Preventive and Social Medicine.^[11]