The government found a new coronavirus patient in the last 24 hours after two days, but good news was that four more patients, three of them above 60 years of old, made complete recovery, the IEDCR in its daily briefing said on Monday. One of the three was a man in his 80s, according to the government’s disease monitoring agency.
The recovery of the aged persons belies the common notion that anyone over the age of 60 years can die of the disease, director Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora said, asking all to adhere to the government instructions, not to panic. “Stay at your home,” she said, asking all to maintain general health and hygiene messages.
The other person who was recovered is a girl of 20 years old. With the latest update, Bangladesh confirmed 49 coronavirus patients – five died and 19 recovered. The average stay at hospital was 16 days. The government tested 153 samples in different laboratories in the last 24 hours. The IEDCR hotlines received 3,997 calls regarding the coronavirus during the time.
Prof Flora said not getting anybody cornavirus positive in a day or two does not mean that the country is risk free. “We’ll be risk free only when the world is risk free. It’s a pandemic. It’s a global disease. So we alone cannot say that we are risk free,” she said. She also warned all about the dengue which also shows similar symptoms of fever. “It’s time of dengue also. If rain starts, dengue cases can surge,” she said, asking people to take precautionary measures such as cleaning in and around the home.
The government in the last 24 hours also released 36 people from institutional quarantine as they were tested negative. Still, 32 people are staying in institutional quarantine mechanism. Besides, 62 people are in isolation with the disease or with the symptoms of the disease.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque joining the virtual briefing said 17 more labs will be set up for testing coronavirus infection. “We are planning to set up testing labs in government medical colleges outside Dhaka,” he said as the government has increased the testing centres to 11 from the only IEDCR lab.
“WHO appreciated our actions and so did the Secretary General of the United Nations. We would like to see no-one left out of treatment in our country,” the minister said. He reiterated that media should not publish news that creates panic among people and claimed that there is no shortage of medical equipment in the country.
“Don’t give any information that may create panic among public...we’ve no lack of treatment facilities, no shortage of kits. We’ve also made adequate arrangements for testing and our PPE supply is no longer falling short," he said. He said there is no shortage of PPE for doctors. They have already distributed over 300,000 PPEs. “We ate working with a target of stocking 10,00,000 more PPEs,” he said.
Coronavirus, first reported in China in December last year, is affecting all countries in the world. The global death toll from the pandemic climbed to 33,993 on Monday, according to Worldometer.
