Daily deaths from Covid-19 jump to 54, highest in 35 days

Amid the growing concern over the rapidly increasing cases and the higher transmissibility of Delta variant, Bangladesh registered 54 more deaths of coronavirus in 24 hours till Monday morning.

With the updated figures, the total fatality mounted to 13,172, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a press statement this afternoon.

Besides, the health authorities detected 3,050 new cases in the same period taking the caseload to 8,29,972, the DGHS said.

The infection rate rose to 14.80 percent which was 12.99 percent on Sunday and 14.12 percent Saturday while the fatality rate rose to 1.59 percent.

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.

Some 20,602 samples were tested at 512 government authorised laboratories in the country at the same time and of them 3,050 were found positive for the virus, the DGHS said.

Besides, a total of 2,568 patients were declared free from the virus, taking the number of recovery to 7,68,830 with 92.637 percent recovery rate.

the deceased, 39 were male and 15 were female and 40 died at public hospitals, 10 at private hospitals and four at houses.

highest 14 people died in Chattogram division in the same period.

Apart from, the deadly virus claimed 13 lives each in Dhaka and Rajshahi, seven in Khulna, five in Rangpur, one each in Barishal and Mymensingh divisions.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 38, 20, 733 deaths so far caused by the virus and 17, 67, 71, 652 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.

Vaccine procurement update

Bangladesh will soon receive 10 lakh and 800 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine soon under COVAX facility, said Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Friday.

Bangladesh, earlier sought 2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the US for addressing Bangladesh's immediate needs but the US is yet to reply on that particular request.

China already delivered the second consignment of vaccine doses for Bangladesh as a gift of its government on Sunday.

Just nine days after the arrival of the first batch of 500,000 doses of gifted vaccine in Bangladesh, China announced the provision of the second batch of gift doses to Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, seven million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield reached Bangladesh and India.