Bangladesh COVID-19 cases top 40,000

ZOOMBANGLA DESK: Bangladesh today exceeded 40,000 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases as 2,029 more people tested positive overnight, the highest in a daily count, BSS reports.

“Fifteen more fatalities were reported from the COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll from the pandemic to 559,” DGHS Additional Director General Prof Nasima Sultana told a virtual media briefing at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in the city.

She said the caseload has surged to 4,0 321 after 2,029 new COVID-19 cases were detected.

Nasima said the recovery count rose to 8,425 after another 500 patients were discharged from the hospitals in the same period.

She also informed that a total of 9,310 samples were tested at 49 authorised labs across the country during that time.

Bangladesh confirmed the first coronavirus death on March 18, ten days after the detection of the first COVID-19 cases.

Nasima said nearly 75 percent COVID-19 patients are taking treatment from their homes, and many of them are being cured every day after receiving treatment through hotlines.

She said among the 15 deaths, two are in their 30s, five in their 50s, five in their 60s, two in their 70s and one in his 90s.

Among the COVID-19 victims, six are in Dhaka city and rests are outside the capital city. According to the division-wise data, seven deaths took place in Dhaka division and eight in Chattogram division.

The health official dubbed Dhaka, Narayanganj and Chattogram COVID-19 as “hotspots” because the maximum numbers of cases were detected in the three cities.

As of May 27, Dhaka city has been considered as the worst-affected with 14,997 COVID cases, according to Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).

Among the COVID-19-prone districts, Chattogram is the most hardest- hit one with 1948 cases, according to the IEDCR data.

It was followed by Narayanganj 1948 cases, Cumilla with 680, Munshiganj with 655, Dhaka with 629, Gazipur with 618 positive cases, Cox’s Bazar with 470, Noakhali with 417 cases, Mymensingh with 409 cases and Rangpur with 394 cases.

She said a total of 2,75,776 samples have so far been tested since the detection of the first COVID-19 cases in the country.

According to the DGHS, a total of 2, 75, 105 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine and 2,16,812 people were released from quarantine, while the number of people who are now in quarantine is 58,293.

It said a total of 629 institutions have been prepared across the country for keeping over 31,991 people in quarantine, adding nearly 4,984 people have now been kept in isolation.

The government has collected 2,454,737 PPE so far, of which over 20, 82,934 were distributed and 3,71, 803 are in stock.

The DGHS sources said till today, nearly 81,89,176 people received healthcare services from hotline mobile numbers and health web portals as the government formed a group of medical professionals to provide emergency health services.

To receive information and treatment facilities on COVID-19, the contact hotline and mobile numbers are 16263; 333; 10655 and 01944333222.

As of May 28, 2020, 09:33 GMT, 357,807 people have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are 5,807,149 currently confirmed cases in 212 countries and territories, according to Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.

China was the world’s first country which on January 11 reported the first death from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province.