Covid-19 cases keep rising, daily deaths hit one-month high

Amid the sharp spike in infection in frontier districts, Bangladesh reported 44 deaths of coronavirus in the last 24 hours till Tuesday morning, the highest single-day fatality toll counted in the last one month.

The health authorities also found 2,322 new positive cases of coronavirus in the same time, taking the caseload to 8,15,282, said a handout of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) this afternoon.

The positivity rate increased to 12.12 percent from Monday’s 11.47 percent and Sunday’s 10.73 percent while the mortality rate remained static at 1.58 percent, DGHS.

Earlier on May 8, the deadly virus claimed 45 lives and infected 1,285 people and the infection and mortality rates of the virus were 8.74 percent and 1.54 percent respectively, according to data available on the dghs.gov.bd website.

many as 2,062 patients were declared free from the infection in the same time, taking to total number of recovery to 7,55,302 with 92.68 percent recovery rate.

the recent deaths, 27 were men and 17 women and of them, 37 died at public hospitals, three at private hospitals and four at their houses.

Of them, 11 died each in Dhaka and Rajshahi, seven in Chattogram, two each in Sylhet and Mymensingh, six in Khulna and five in Rangpur divisions.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 37, 53, 371 deaths so far caused by the virus and 17, 40, 76, 914 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.