DHAKA, June 8, 2020 (BSS) – Bangladesh today reported 42 more fatalities from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in a daily count, raising the death toll from the pandemic to 930.
“The tally of infections has also surged to 68,504 after 2,735 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the last 24 hours,” 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 recovery count rose to 14,560 after another 657 patients were released from hospitals in the same period.
Among the total infections, 21.20 percent patients have recovered while 1.34 percent died so far since the first COVID-19 positive cases were reported in the country on March 8, the heath official said.
She also informed that a total of 12,944 samples were tested at 52 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 a 10-member Chinese health experts team arrived here today at the invitation of Bangladesh government aiming to share knowledge with top officials of relevant organizations, health experts and members of different committees to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chinese team will stay for 14 days in Bangladesh and they will visit different COVID-19-dedicated hospitals, quarantine and isolation centers in Dhaka and Narayaganj, she said.
The team members will also talk to authorities of different hospitals and health service-providing organizations in different parts of the country through videoconferences, Nasima added.
The health official laid emphasis on maintaining three heath directives — wearing mask, physical distancing and washing hands by soap — to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Referring to latest health directives of the World Health Organization (WHO), she said the people must wear masks to protect themselves from infections of coronavirus and mentioned that scientifically cloth-made mask is equally effective to prevent the virus.
“We can reuse cloth-made masks after washing those by detergents or soaps,” Nasima said.
She 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.
Among the 42 deaths, 33 are male and nine female, she said adding, three are in their 20s while one is in his 30s, seven in their 40s, 10 in their 50s, 12 in their 60s, four in their 70s, two in their 80s and two in his 90s .
According to the division-wise data, 25 deaths took place in Dhaka division and eight in Chattogram division while rests are in other divisions.
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 June 5, Dhaka city has been considered as the worst-affected with 19,863 COVID cases, according to Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).
Among the COVID-19-prone districts, Chattogram, and Narayanganj, are the most hardest- hit ones with 2,875 and 2,541 cases respectively, according to the IEDCR data.
It was followed by Dhaka with 1,431, Cumilla with 1189, Gazipur with 1163, Munshiganj with 980, Cox’s Bazar with 969, Noakhali with 838 cases, Sylhet with 676, Mymensingh with 540 cases and Rangpur with 488 cases.
She said a total of 4, 10, 931 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 3,0,3425 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine and 2, 47,353 people were released from quarantine, while the number of people who are now in quarantine is 56,072.
It said a total of 629 institutions have been prepared across the country for keeping over 31,991 people in quarantine, adding nearly 7,552 people have now been kept in isolation.
The government has collected 25, 09,142 PPE so far, of which over 22, 49,275 were distributed and 2,59,867 are in stock.
The DGHS sources said till today, nearly 10,128,117 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 June 8, 2020, 10:59 GMT, 406,549 have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are 7,113,012 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.