Bangladesh on Saturday reached a grim milestone when it surpassed China in the number of confirmed Covid19 cases.
The health department announced the confirmation of 2,856 new cases by testing 13,638 samples in 59 labs in the last 24 hours.
With that, the total number of cases rose to 84,379, a figure more than the China’s reported 83,075 cases since the outbreak of the disease in Wuhan in December.
Bangladesh first recorded the disease on March 8.
On Saturday, the government also confirmed the death of 44 more patients, taking the total tally to 1,139.
China as the world's most populous country has a population of 1.4 billion. Bangladesh’s population is about 165 million.
Among the new dead patients, 44 were men and 11 women.
Of them, 19 are from Dhaka, 13 from Chattogram, four each from Rajshahi and Barishal, two from Sylhet and one from Khulna, Additional Director General for Health Prof Nasima Sultana made the disclosure at the virtual briefing.
Some 578 patients recovered from the disease during the period, increasing the tally to 17,827.
Twenty-seven patients died in different hospitals, 14 at their respective homes and three were diagnosed with the infection after death.
According to the latest data by DGHS, 21.13% coronavirus infected patients have recovered and 1.35% died.
However, the infection rate has been 21.13 percent on Saturday.
Currently, 60,785 people are quarantined across the country – including 2,414 newly-quarantined individuals.
A total of 256,859 people have completed their quarantine course.
The authorities placed 496 new individuals suspected of having Covid-19 into isolation, bringing the total to 9,340 after 5,229 left.
Prof Nasima urged the people to abide by health rules to protect themselves from the infection of the deadly virus.
“We’ve to be aware… Health protection measures are the best remedies to prevent the pandemic,” she added.
She laid emphasis on maintaining three health directives — wearing a mask, physical distancing and washing hands by soap — to contain the spread of COVID-19.
She referred to the latest health directives of the WHO, and said people must wear masks to protect themselves from infections.
Cloth-made masks are scientifically equally effective to prevent the virus, she said, adding that “We can reuse cloth-made masks after washing by detergents or soaps".
