Covid-19 positivity rate hits 45-day high

As the Covid-19 situation started worsening again, Bangladesh recorded 40 more deaths and 2,576 new cases in last 24 hours until Thursday morning, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

With the updated figurers, the total death mounted to 12,989 while the caseload to 8,20,395, the DGHS came up with the disclosure in a press statement this afternoon.

number of infections and deaths is on the rise in different frontier districts amid fear expressed by experts that these districts will face a serious healthcare crisis as their hospitals are not equipped enough to face any worsening situation.

The daily infection rate increased to 13.25 percent from Wednesday’s 12.33 percent and Tuesday’s 12.12 percent while the mortality rate remained static at 1.58 percent.

Some 19,447 samples were tested at 510 government authorised laboratories in the country at the same time and of them 2,576 were found positive for the virus, the DGHS said.

Besides, a total of 2,061 patients were declared free from the virus, taking the number of recovery to 7,59,630 with 92.59 percent recovery rate.

the deceased, 31 were male and nine were female and 31 died at public hospitals, six at private hospitals and three at houses.

highest 12 people died in Chattogram division in the period.

from, the deadly virus claimed eight lives each in Dhaka and Rajshahi division, six in Khulna, four in Rangpur and two in Sylhet divisions.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 37, 78, 163 deaths so far caused by the virus and 17, 87, 40, 771 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 its vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses purchased from India’s Serum Institute.

The administration of the first dose remained suspended since April 26.

The country, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, has also suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to vaccine shortage amid a delay in the arrival of shipments from India.

However, the administering of the 1st dose of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine against Covid-19 began in Bangladesh on May 25.

So far, four vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield), Sputnik-V, Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech – have got emergency use authorisation in the country.

Seven million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine reached Bangladesh, and the governments of India and China gave 3.2 million doses and 500,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine as gifts.

However, the country, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to vaccine shortage amid a delay in the arrival of shipments from India.

Meanwhile, Hualong Yan, minister counselor deputy chief of Mission Embassy of China in Bangladesh wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday that his country is ready to send 600,000 doses of vaccine to Bangladesh as gift by June 13.