Amid the spread of a new wave of the coronavirus, Bangladesh has logged 108 deaths on Friday, the second highest single-day jump since the pandemic unfolded last year.
On April 19 this year, 112 deaths were reported, the most in a single day. The latest figure takes the toll in the country to 13,976.
Khulna reported 27 deaths, the most among the eight divisions. Dhaka saw 25 deaths, Chittagong 23, Rajshahi 16, Rangpur 10, Mymensingh 4 and Sylhet 3. No deaths were reported from Barisal.
New infections slightly dropped to 5,869 in the 24 hours to Friday morning — down from 6,058 the previous day — taking the total caseload to 878,904.
The daily infection rate continued to rise. It stood at 21.22% on Friday, the highest since April 17, up from 15% a week ago.
Amid the dramatic surge in Covid-19 infections, public experts fear that the pandemic in Bangladesh could take a catastrophic turn.
According to the figures released by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), a total of 2,776 patients recovered in 24 hours, taking the total number of recovery to 797,559.
As many as 27,653 samples, including some pending ones, were tested at 554 authorized labs — government and private — across the country.
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Of the 108 new fatalities reported on Friday, 75 were males and 33 females.
So far, 9,995 males (71.52%) and 3,981 females (28.48%) have died from the coronavirus in Bangladesh.
Since the pandemic started, Dhaka Division has counted 7,472 deaths while Chittagong saw 2,650 deaths, Khulna 1,114, Rajshahi 952, Rangpur 565, Sylhet 514, Barisal 413, and Mymensingh 296.
The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.59%.
As many as 27,653 samples, including some pending ones, were tested at 554 authorized labs — government and private — across the country. To date, 6,463,119 tests have been conducted in the country, leading to an overall test positivity rate of 13.6%.
In the 24 hours to Friday morning, 2,607 people received second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, taking the total number of people receiving second dose of vaccine to a little over 4.28 million.
Since the inoculation drive began in February, Bangladesh has administered the first dose of the Oxford vaccine to 5,820,015 people.
Additionally, 4,720 people received first dose of Sinopharm vaccine over the same period, taking the total to 32,688 till now while 126 people received second dose of the vaccine in 24 hours, taking the total to 368 as of Friday. As many as 240 people received first dose of Pfizer vaccine till now.
Health authorities in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020 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, 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.
The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed more than 3,917,000 lives and infected as many as 180,844,000 people across the world till Friday afternoon, according to Worldometer.
As many as 165,478,000 people have recovered from Covid-19 which has spread to 220 countries and territories across the planet.