Bangladesh marks another spike in COVID-19 after Eid

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Bangladesh on Tuesday marked another spike in the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, one day after the Muslim majority country celebrated the biggest religious festival Eid-al-Fitr.

Experts and medical doctors at the eve of the holy Eid repeatedly warned of rapid surge in the coronavirus due to massive violation of social distanting and health guidelines.  

As many as 21 more death fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, raising the total COVID-19 death tally to 522, according to latest update by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

“The tally of infections has also surged to 36,751 after 1,166 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the last 24 hours,” DGHS Additional Director General Prof Nasima Sultana told a virtual media briefing Tuesday evening.

She said the recovery count rose to 7,579 after another 245 patients were released from hospitals in the same period.

The health official also informed that a total of 5,407 samples were tested at 48 authorized 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.

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

She said a total of 2,58,441 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, 68, 315 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine and 2,12,326 people were released from quarantine, while the number of people who are now in quarantine is 55,989.

It said a total of 662 institutions have been prepared across the country for keeping over 31,840 people in quarantine, adding nearly 4,770 people have now been kept in isolation.

The government has collected 2,454,737 PPE so far, of which over 20, 66,334 were distributed and 3,88, 803 are in stock.

The DGHS sources said till today, nearly 78, 14,009 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 26, 2020, 09:43 GMT, 348,241 people have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are 5,605,612 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.

Kamruzzaman