Covid-19: Bangladesh logs 38 deaths, 1,028 new cases

Bangladesh recorded 38 more death of coronavirus in the last 24 hours till Saturday morning, taking the death toll to 12,348, said a handout of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

deadly disease also infected 1,028 people at the same time, pushing the number to 7,87,726, the DGHS came up with the disclosure in the handout this afternoon.

The country has been seeing bellow 50 daily deaths from May 9 and the number stayed mostly below 60 from the beginning of May.

The country experienced a surge in Covid-19 cases in April, recording its highest single-day cases of 7,626 on April 7. It witnessed over 100 deaths during April 16-19 and on April 25.

The infection rate again went up to 8.41 percent from Friday’s 8.22 percent while the fatality rate rose to 1.57 percent which was remained static at 1.56 percent for the last five consecutive days, the DGHS said.

Some 12, 230 samples were tested at 482 government authorised laboratories in the country and of them, 1,028 new cases were detected in the same time.

As many as 759 patients were declared free from the infection, taking the number of recoveries to 7, 29, 798 with recovery rate 92.65 percent.

Among the deceased, 19 were male while seven were female.

The health authority counted 16 in Dhaka division, the most vulnerable area in Bangladesh, 7 in Chattogram, four each in Rajshahi, Khulna and Sylhet, two in Rangpur and one in Barishal divisions.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 34, 59, 267 deaths so far caused by the virus and 16, 65, 33, 497 cases worldwide.

Since the outbreak of the virus in China in 2019, the health authority in Bangladesh confirmed the first case on March 8, 2020 and recorded the first death caused by the virus on March 18 in the same year.

Vaccination drive

Bangladesh launched vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses purchased from India's Serum Institute.

The administration of the first dose has been suspended since April 26. The government also has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to the shortage of vaccine amid a delay in the timely arrival of shipments from India.

After India’s refusal to give the vaccine to Bangladesh, the government has started its hectic efforts to get the vaccine from other sources.

Bangladesh has requested the USA, UK, Canada and India to provide it the vaccines on an emergency basis to meet the shortfall of the second phase inoculation drive.