Covid-19: Bangladesh records 26 more deaths, 1,544 new cases in 24hrs

Bangladesh has reported 1,544 new cases of the Covid-19 in the past 24 hours to Sunday morning, taking the number of total infected to 348,916.

Fatality due to the deadly virus now stands at 4,939 with 26 people dying during the same period, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in its daily virus update.

The country reached the grim milestone of 4,500 deaths on September 7, 12 days after the body count reached the 4,000 mark on August 25. 

The number of fatalities crossed the 2,000 mark on July 5.

Covid-19 deaths in Bangladesh crossed the 1,000 mark on June 10 in nearly three months since the first fatality was recorded on March 18.

Of the 26 deceased, including 17 men and nine women, 19 were from Dhaka division, four from Chittagong, and one each from Rangpur, Rajshahi, and Khulna divisions.

Among the victims, 24 died at different hospitals and two at home.

So far, 3,846 men (77.87%) and 1,093 women (22.13%) have died from Covid-19 across the country.

The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.42%.

The DGHS said 10,787 samples were collected from suspected Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours. 

As many as, 11,591 including the pending ones, were tested in the 97 authorized labs — government and private — across the country.

The latest figures show an infection rate of 13.32%.

To date, 1,821,270 tests have been conducted in the country, leading to an overall infection rate of 19.16% so far.

The health authorities said 2,179 people recovered from the disease over the preceding 24 hours.

So far, 256,565 patients — 73.53% of all infected — have made full recovery across the country.

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 novel coronavirus broke 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 more than 962,000 lives and infected over 31,020,000 people across the world till Sunday afternoon, according to worldometer.

As many as 22,621,000 people have recovered from the deadly virus which has spread to 213 countries and territories across the planet.