Bangladesh has outpaced China in the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in more than three months though the deadly virus broke out in the East Asian country in December last year.
Bangladesh recorded a total number of 84,379 cases ranking 18th position in the list of Covid-19 worst hit countries while China stood 19th with 83,075 infections until Saturday, according to Worldometer.
However, fatalities due to the virus in China is more than four times higher than Bangladesh.
In the 24 hours to Saturday, Bangladesh reported 2,856 fresh cases and 44 new deaths.
With the latest updates, the virus body count in the country is now 1,139 while fatalities in China as of Saturday stands at 4,634.
Additional Director General (Administration) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Prof Nasima Sultana, revealed the latest figures of deaths and cases from Dhaka on Saturday afternoon, in a daily online bulletin on the Covid-19 situation.
Fatality rate 1.35%
Prof Nasima, also the DGHS acting director general (DG), said of the 44 deceased -- 33 men and 11 women -- 19 were from Dhaka division, 13 from Chittagong division, four each from Rajshahi and Barisal, two from Sylhet, and one each from Rangpur and Khulna divisions.
Of the deceased, 27 died in hospitals, 14 at home, and three were brought dead to hospitals, she said.
The death toll accounts for 1.35% of the total infected.
Earlier, Bangladesh registered the highest number of Covid-19 deaths (46) in a single day on June 12.
Deaths from the coronavirus infection crossed the 1,000 mark in Bangladesh on June 10 while the country recorded the first fatality on March 18. The country crossed the 100 mark in deaths on April 20.
20.94% test positive in 24 hours
The daily test positivity percentage came down on Saturday from the previous day.
The DGHS official said as many as 14,035 samples were collected between Friday and Saturday.
A total of 13,638 samples were tested in 59 authorized labs across the country and 2,856 of them or 20.94% turned out to be Covid-19 positive, she said.
The daily positivity percentage was 21.71% on Friday. It reached an all-time high on June 2, with 22.91% of the total number of samples tested in a day coming back positive.
On June 12, the country logged 3,471 Covid-19 cases, highest in a 24-hour span, since the first cases reported back in March.
In all, 489,960 tests have been conducted so far, she said.
Recovery rate 21.13%
In the briefing, the DGHS acting DG also said that 578 more Covid-19 patients recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours.
So far, 17,827 people (21.13% of all infected) have made full recovery after being infected by the novel coronavirus.
Across the country, 496 more people were taken to isolation in the last 24 hours, while 168 were released. As many as 9,340 patients remained in isolation now.
During the same period, another 2,414 people were put in quarantine and 1,480 were released. At present, 60,785 people are quarantined across the country.
On March 8, health authorities in Bangladesh reported the first case of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by the new strain of coronavirus, Sars-CoV-2. The virus broke out in China's Wuhan in December 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.
The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed 428,638 lives and infected 7,758,296 people across the world till 4pm on Saturday, according to Worldometer.
As many as 3,975,592 people have recovered from Covid-19 which has spread to 213 countries and territories across the planet.
