Covid-19 claims 60 lives in 24hrs, highest in 43 days

The coronavirus situation in Bangladesh keeps worsening as the health authorities counted 60 more deaths and 3,956 new cases in the last 24 hours till Wednesday.

The positivity rate went up to 16.62 percent which was 14.27 percent Tuesday 14.80 percent on Monday, said a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

With the new figures, the country’s death toll now mounted to 13,282 while the caseload at 8,37,247. During the period, the fatality rate remained static at 1.59 percent.

The country last recorded 56 deaths on May 9 and 3031 cases on April 27.

The 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 23,807 samples were tested at 513 government authorised laboratories in the country at the same time and of them 3,956 were found positive for the virus, the DGHS said.

Besides, a total of 2,679 patients were declared free from the virus, taking the number of recovery to 7,73, 752 with 92.42 percent recovery rate.

Among the deceased, 36 were male and 24 were female and 46 died at public hospitals, nine at private hospitals and five at houses.

The highest 17 people died in Rajshahi in the last 24 hours.

Apart from, the deadly virus claimed 14 lives in Khulna, eight each in Dhaka and Chattogram, six in Sylhet, four in Rangpur and three in Mymensingh divisions.

Meanwhile, Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics, has recorded 38, 39, 931 deaths so far caused by the virus and 17, 74, 70, 620 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 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.

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

Meanwhile, Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Wednesday said that Bangladesh will get 10 lakh doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from GAVI under a global arrangement called COVAX facility by August.