Confirmed coronavirus cases in Bangladesh have surpassed 87,000 mark on Sunday as another 3,141 people tested positive in the past 24 hours.
With the latest figure, the number of total confirmed cases jumped to 87,520.
Meanwhile, the country also recorded 32 more deaths from the deadly disease over the same period, taking the number of fatalities to 1,171.
Additional Director General (Administration) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Prof Nasima Sultana, revealed the latest figures from Dhaka on Sunday afternoon, in a daily online bulletin on the Covid-19 situation.
Bangladesh, in the meantime, 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 ranked 18th position in the list of Covid-19 worst-hit countries while China stood 19th with 83,132 infections until Sunday, according to worldometer.
However, fatalities due to the virus in China (4,634) are more than almost four times higher than the South Asian country.
Fatality rate 1.34%
Prof Nasima, also the DGHS acting director general (DG), said of the 32 deceased -- 27 men and 5 women -- 16 were from Dhaka division, 11 from Chittagong division, two from Sylhet, and one each from Barisal, Rangpur, and Mymensingh divisions.
She said one of the deceased was between 21 and 30, seven between 31 and 40 years of age, six between 41 and 50, 10 between 51 and 60, nine in their 61 and 70, two between 71 and 80, three over 80.
Of the victims, 20 died in different hospitals, 11 at home, and one was brought dead to a hospital, she added.
The death toll accounts for 1.34% 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.
21.65% test positive in 24hrs
The DGHS official said as many as 14,690 samples were collected between Saturday and Sunday.
Of those, 14,505 samples were tested in 60 authorized labs across the country and 3,141 of them or 21.65% tested Covid-19 positive, she said.
The daily positivity percentage was 20.94% on Saturday. 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 coronavirus cases, highest in a 24-hour span, since the first cases reported back in March.
In all, 501,465 tests have been conducted so far, she said.
Recovery rate 21.40%
In the briefing, the DGHS acting DG also said that 903 more Covid-19 patients recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours.
So far, 18,730 people – 21.40% of all infected – have made full recovery after being infected by the deadly virus.
Across the country, 712 more people were taken to isolation in the last 24 hours, while 294 were released. As many as 9,758 patients remained in isolation now.
During the same period, another 2,792 people were put in quarantine and 1,763 were released. At present, 61,814 people are quarantined across the country.
“The government has now a total 201,217 personal protective equipment (PPE) in reserve. And in the past 24 hours, we distributed a total of 9,050 PPEs to the frontline workers” she added.
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.
Till now the fast-spreading coronavirus has claimed more than 432,000 lives and infected more than 7,895,000 people globally, according to worldometer.
As many as 4,056,000 people have recovered from Covid-19, which has spread to 213 countries and territories across the world.
