Covid-19: Death toll closing in on 8,000-mark in Bangladesh

With 15 fresh deaths from Covid-19 reported in the last 24 hours, Bangladesh is close to the 8,000-mark for the total death toll caused by the pandemic. 

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), in its daily Covid-19 bulletin released on Friday, said the national death toll due to Covid-19, which was first detected in the country on March 8 last year, now stands at 7,981, as of Friday morning. 

The country also logged 619 fresh cases of the respiratory disease over the same time period, raising the total number of cases in the country to 530,890 coronavirus cases with 619 people.

The latest figures show an infection rate of 4.17%. The overall infection rate of the country stands at 15.04%.

Deaths

Of the 15 deceased – 10 men and five women – eight were from Dhaka division; four from Chittagong; and one each from Rajshahi, Rangpur, and Mymensingh divisions.

All the victims died at different hospitals across the country.

So far, 6,047 men (75.77%) and 1,931 women (24.23%) have died from Covid-19 across the country. 

Since the beginning, 4,434 people have died in Dhaka division, 1,463 in Chittagong, 456 in Rajshahi, 545 in Khulna, 240 in Barisal, 301 in Sylhet, 355 in Rangpur, and 187 in Mymensingh.

The mortality rate against the total number of cases detected so far stands at 1.50%.

Recoveries

The health authorities said 487 people recovered from the disease over the preceding 24 hours.

So far, 475,561patients – 89.58% – have made full recovery across the country.

As many as 14,486 samples, including the pending ones, were tested in the 200 authorized labs -- government and private -- across the country.

Currently, 10,783 people are in isolation and 36,078 are quarantined.

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, 2019 and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.

Global situation

The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed 2,102,368 lives and infected 98,167,437 people across the world till Friday afternoon, according to Worldometer.

As many as 70,569,517 people have recovered from Covid-19 which has spread to 221 countries and territories across the planet.

The US has recorded the most cases since the start of the pandemic with 25,196,086 followed by India with 10,626,200 and Brazil with 8,699,814.

Meanwhile, as many as 420,285 people died from Covid-19 so far in the US.

Brazil has the world's second-highest Covid-19 death toll, after the US, and the third-largest outbreak, after the US and India.

Brazil reported 214,228 deaths from Covid-19 while death toll in India reached 153,067.