Bangladesh confirmed 306 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday which is the single-day highest so far after an amendment of April 16 numbers. Nine more COVID-19 patients died and eight returned home after recovery in the last 24 hours, IEDCR director Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora said in the daily briefing at 2.30pm.
She said the number of new cases was announced 341 on April 16 which would actually be 292. The rest 49 cases will be added to the previous day’s 219, meaning the number of new cases was 268 on April 15. She said they had already amended their website. The IEDCR announced the new cases of 24 hours after taking lab reports from across Bangladesh between 8am and 8am. Some reports were pending on April 15 which was added to April 16 during the formal announcement.
The IEDCR made the amendment for better analysis, the director said. With that update, the number of total cases stood at 2144 with 84 deaths and 66 recoveries. Most of the patients were young at the age between 21 years to 30 years. Only 564 people are taking treatment in hospitals. Eleven of them are in the intensive care units, she said.
Dhaka city still remains the hotspot of the virus while newer areas at the suburbs such as Gazipur, Narshingdhi and Kishoreganj are witnessing increasing number of patients. The IEDCR director said travelers from Narayanaganj contributed to that spread. The government is enforcing a lockdown by closing everything except emergency services. The general holidays have been extended to April 25.
People have been asked to stay at home and maintain personal hygiene such as washing hands with soap, not to touch mouth and eyes with unwashed hands and cover cough and sneezes to prevent the virus. In the last 24 hours, the government tested 2,114 samples in 19 laboratories across Bangladesh inlcuding a new one in Jessore Science and Technology University.
The IEDCR director said mild infected patients should take treatment from their homes and they must stay at home isolation according to WHO. In such cases, family members have to maintain safe distance from the patients, she said. She urged the COVID-19 positive patients with mild symptoms not to visit hospital or get admitted, which will eventually reduce the pressure on hospitals creating a scope for providing treatment of critical cases.
Analyzing infected history of COVID-19 cases, she said rampant movement of coronavirus patients are mainly responsible for being infected with the virus. The IEDCR director called upon all to stay at home alongside following hygiene practices including washing hands with soap and wearing masks to contain COVID-19.
The number of cases increased sharply in Bangladesh since April 12 when 139 positive cases were confirmed - 182 were confirmed on April 13, and 209 on April 14.
The number was 266 on April 17. The government so far tested 21,191 samples. As of April 18, 154,734 people have died so far from the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak worldwide and there are currently 2,261,425 confirmed cases in 210 countries and territories, according to Worldometer.
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, while Bangladesh confirmed its first COVID-19 positive cases on March 8. The World Health Organisation declared the virus pandemic on April 11.
