Bangladesh on Sunday witnessed the record single-day rise of new cases of coronavirus and deaths from the disease COVID-19.
Additional Director General for Health Prof Dr Nasima Sultana at the daily virtual briefing said 887 new patients were detected in the last 24 hours, taking the total number to 14657.
“Besides, a record number of 14 people died during the same period, taking the death toll in the country to 228,” she said.
She said the recovery count rose to 2650 after 236 patients were discharged from hospitals during the 24 hours till 8am of Sunday.
The government tested 5738 samples in 36 RT-PCR laboratories across Bangladesh during the time.
Coronavirus, first reported in China in December last year, has infected 4,100,729 people and killed 280,431 worldwide as of Sunday morning, according to Worldometer.
Bangladesh first confirmed the disease on March 8 and first death on March 18. The World Health Organisation declared the virus pandemic on March 11.
Currently, 36,422 people are quarantined across the country – including 2,218 newly-quarantined individuals. A total of 174,201 people have completed their time under quarantine.
“The authorities placed 169 new individuals suspected of having Covid-19 into isolation, bringing the total to 2,015 after 1114 left,” Prof Nasima said.
She said the country is capable of accommodating 8,634 people at 601 isolation wards and 30,955 people at 615 institutional quarantine facilities.
There are 330 ICU facilities and 102 dialysis beds available for the treatment of coronavirus infected patients in Bangladesh. As many as 4,458,017 hotline services were given by 15,701 trained and 4,064 volunteer doctors via three designated numbers, including 135,169 in last 24-hour till 8am today.
Till date, a total of 682,259 thermal screenings were conducted at different ports, including 164 at airports, 217 at seaports and 246 at land ports in the last 24 hours.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) collected by the government has been 2,121,285 by far, of which 1,710,814 were distributed and 410,471 are left in store.
Apart from the home service for sample collection, Brac has installed ten booths so far to speed up sample collection, the additional director general said.
Those are: four at the BSMMU, one each at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College (ShSMC), National Laboratory of Reference Institute, Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery, and Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib Memorial KPJ Specialized Hospital at the outskirts of Dhaka and two others in Narayanganj.