Death toll from the coronavirus infection has crossed 2,300 in Bangladesh as 30 more people have died of the deadly virus in the past 24 hours.
With the latest figure, the number of total fatalities surged to 2,305.
Meanwhile, the country has logged more than 181,000 Covid-19 cases with 2,686 people testing positive in the last 24 hours.
With this development, the number of total confirmed cases jumped to 181,129.
Additional Director General (Administration) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Nasima Sultana, revealed the latest figures from Dhaka on Saturday afternoon, in a daily online bulletin on the Covid-19 situation.
She also said that 1,628 people recovered from the disease between Friday and Saturday mornings.
So far, a total of 88,034 patients — 48.60% of all infected — have made full recovery across the country, since the first Covid-19 cases were recorded on March 8.
Fatality rate 1.27%
Nasima said, of the 30 deceased, 25 were male and five were female. Thirteen were from Dhaka division, 10 from Chittagong, three each from Rajshahi and Khulna, and one from Barisal division.
Of the deceased, 18 died in different hospitals, 11 at home, and one was brought dead to a hospital, she said.
So far, 1,824 (79.13%) men and 481 (20.87%) women have died from the deadly virus across the country, Nasima said.
She added that the mortality rate was 1.27% against the total cases detected so far.
Until Saturday, Dhaka division reported 50.02% deaths while Chittagong division reported 26.55% deaths in total.
Highest 24% test positive in 24hrs
The DGHS official said that 11,475 samples were collected from suspected Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours.
As many as 11,193 samples were tested in the authorized labs across the country.
With 2,686 of the tests coming back positive, the detection rate of new patients in the last 24 hours stood at 24%, she said. This is the highest percentage to test positive out of the total number of samples tested in a day.
The test positivity percentage was 21.86% on Friday. Earlier on June 18, 23.39% was the highest percentage of the total number of samples tested in a day to come back positive.
Till date, no fewer than 929,465 tests have been conducted in the country, leading to a whopping 19.49% infection rate as of now.
Situation at dedicated Covid-19 hospitals
In the Dhaka metropolitan area, 2,194 patients are undergoing treatment at general beds in the dedicated Covid-19 hospitals, while 105 others are being treated in intensive care units (ICUs).
In Chittagong city, 331 people are taking treatment in general beds and 21 in ICUs.
"Besides, a total of 11,275 oxygen cylinders are currently in use across Bangladesh," she said.
Looking back
On March 8, health authorities in Bangladesh reported the first three cases of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus strain which was later named Sars-CoV-2.
The country recorded its first fatality on March 18.
Covid-19 deaths in Bangladesh crossed the 1,000 mark on June 10. The toll reached 2,000 on July 5. On June 18, the number of total cases crossed the 100,000 mark.
On June 30, the country recorded 64 deaths, which is the highest in a 24-hour span till now.
On July 2, a total of 4,019 positive cases were recorded, which was the highest in a single day till now.
The novel coronavirus had broken out in China's Wuhan city in late December last year and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.
The fast-spreading coronavirus has claimed 563,261 lives and infected 12,647,830 people across the world till 3:45pm on Saturday, according to Worldometer.
As many as 7,382,562 people have recovered from Covid-19 which has spread to 213 countries and territories across the planet.