Bangladesh witnesses highest spike in Covid-19 cases in 24hrs

Bangladesh has recorded the highest single day cases from coronavirus infection as 665 more people tested positive in the last 24 hours.

With the latest figure, the number of total confirmed cases jumped to 9,455.

Meanwhile, the country witnessed a fall in the death figures as two people have died of Covid-19 over the same period, taking the number of fatalities to 177 in the country.

Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Additional Director General (Administration) Prof Nasima Sultana revealed the latest figures in a daily online bulletin on Covid-19 situation from Dhaka on Sunday afternoon.

She said the health authorities in the past 24 hours collected 5,214 samples and tested 5,368, taking the total number of tests conducted so far to 81,434.

Earlier, Bangladesh recorded the highest single day cases (641) from the coronavirus infection on April 29.

The DGHS official said the two deceased were from Narayanganj and Rangpur. One of them was aged between 11 and 20, and another was above 60 years.

On April 20, the death toll from coronavirus infection crossed the 100-mark in Bangladesh.

On April 17, the country recorded the highest deaths (15) from the pandemic announced by the World Health Organization (WHO), since the country declared its first death on March 18.

1,063 recover from hospitals

In the briefing, the DGHS official revealed that a newly formed Clinical Management Committee of the health authorities has given a fresh guideline mentioning criteria based on which a patient can be termed cured or discharged from hospitals after recovery. 

As per the criteria, a total of 1,063 people have recovered from the disease so far, she said.

Of them, 624 individuals were released from the hospitals in Dhaka city and 439 were released from other hospitals in Dhaka (excluding the city) and other divisions, said Nasima Sultana.

Source: DGHS

In the case of divisional level hospitals, 272 people were released from Dhaka division, 72 from Chittagong, two in Rajshahi, six in Khulna, 29 from Barisal, two in Sylhet, 31 in Mymensingh, and 25 from Rangpur division, she continued. 

Among the hospitals in Dhaka city, the highest number of patients (298 out of 624) was released from Kuwait Bangladesh Friendship Government Hospital.

Besides, 213 people were released from Kurmitola General Hospital, eight from Dhaka Infectious Disease Hospital, 38 from Dhaka Mohanagar General Hospital, 15 from Regent Hospital, 22 from SAJIDA Hospital, 26 from Central Police Hospital in Rajarbag, and four from Mirpur Lalkuthi General Hospital, Nasima added.

On March 8, the health authorities in Bangladesh reported the first case of Covid-19, a severe acute respiratory illness caused by a new strain of coronavirus named Sars-CoV-2 that broke out in China's Wuhan in December last year and quickly spread throughout the world, becoming a pandemic in less than three months.

The fast spreading coronavirus has claimed 244,876 lives and infected 3,497,047 people across the world till 3pm on Sunday, according to worldometer.

As many as 1,126,291 people have recovered from Covid-19 which has spread to 212 countries and territories across the planet.