Bangladesh logged 178,443 Covid-19 cases with 2,949 people testing positive over the last 24 hours.
The number of daily infection cases in the country dropped below 3,000 after five days as Bangladesh recorded 2,738 cases on July 5.
With 37 new deaths, the total death toll from the coronavirus infection has reached 2,275 in Bangladesh with 50% of deaths reported from Dhaka Division alone.
Additional Director General (Administration) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Nasima Sultana revealed the latest figures from Dhaka on Friday afternoon, at an online bulletin on the Covid-19 situation.
She also said that 1,862 people recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours.
So far, a total of 86,406 patients — 48.42% 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 37 deceased, 29 were male and eight were female. Twelve were from Dhaka division, 17 from Chittagong, two each from Rajshahi, Sylhet, and Rangpur, and one each from Barisal and Mymensingh divisions.
Of the deceased, 23 died in different hospitals and 14 at home, she said.
So far, 1,799 (79.08%) men and 476 (20.92%) 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.
Of the death toll, Dhaka Division reports 50.11% deaths and Chittagong Division reports 26.46% deaths in total.
21.86% test positive in 24hrs
The DGHS official said that 14,377 samples were collected from suspected Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours.
As many as 13,488 samples were tested in 77 authorized labs – 47 government and government-supervised labs and 30 privately managed labs-- across the country.
With 2,949 of the tests coming back positive, the detection rate of new patients in the last 24 hours stood at 21.86%, she said.
Till date, no fewer than 918,272 tests have been conducted in the country, leading to a whopping 19.43% infection rate as of yet.
The situation at dedicated Covid-19 hospitals
In the Dhaka metropolitan area, there are 6,305 general beds in dedicated Covid-19 hospitals and 4,106 of those are vacant. There are also 142 beds in intensive care units (ICUs) and 108 of them are occupied.
In Chittagong, there are 657 general beds with 344 of them being free while 15 out of 39 ICU beds are occupied.
Other hospitals across the country have 4,361 out of 14,945 general and 168 out of 394 ICU beds occupied, respectively, said Nasima.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, 445 patients were admitted to hospitals and 639 were released.
“Besides, a total of 11,766 oxygen cylinders are currently in use across Bangladesh,” she said.
One can call the numbers 01313791130 and 01313791138-40 for information regarding hospitals, she further said.
Nasima also said that 893 people were taken into isolation since Thursday, taking the current total of isolated patients across the country to 17,192.
Meanwhile, 2,600 people were quarantined at the same time, taking the current total of quarantined people to 63,537.
Healthcare providers received 192,559 calls in the last 24 hours and served a total 15,676,180 calls as of now.
In the last 24 hours, 1,758 incoming passengers were screened at different points including 1,162 at airports, 437 at land ports and 159 at seaports. In total, 749,965 passengers were screened across Bangladesh at different entry points.
Hospitals and PPEs
The government now has 1,148,271 personal protective equipment (PPE) in reserve.
Different types of 1,235,763 gloves are now in stock while 6,458,917 masks and 1,310,280 goggles are in stock.
Looking back
The novel coronavirus, a strain later named Sars-CoV-2, 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.
On March 8, the country’s health authorities had reported the first three cases of Covid-19, the severe acute respiratory illness caused by the virus. The first fatality was recorded on March 18.
