Bangladesh sees 56 Covid deaths, lowest in 81 days

Bangladesh reported 56 new coronavirus-related deaths, lowest in 81 days, in a 24-hour period till 8:00am on Tuesday.

Health authorities also recorded 2,639 new infections during the same period.

The positivity rate on Tuesday went down slightly to 9.69 per cent from Monday’s 9.82 per cent.

The overall caseload now stands at 15,19,805 and the total fatalities at 26,684, according to the press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The country earlier on June 18 logged 54 deaths of the deadly infection.

Health authorities reported the latest figures after testing 27,233 samples at 799 laboratories across the country. Bangladesh has so far tested 91,18,843 samples.

Meanwhile, 5,567 patients recovered from the deadly infection in the last 24-hours, raising the overall recovery to 14,60,754.

Among the fresh fatalities, 19 were males and 37 were females.

Dhaka division logged the highest deaths with 20 fatalities followed by 15 in Chattogram, six in Khulna, five in Sylhet, four in Barishal, three in Rajshahi, two in Rangpur, and one in Mymensingh.

Mass vaccination for 2nd dose starts

The inoculation of the second dose under mass vaccination campaign started across the country on Tuesday.

Vaccine takers are seen standing in queues at different vaccination centres in the capital and elsewhere for receiving their second jabs since morning.

As per the government decision, those who received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in all city corporation areas on August 7 and 8 got the second dose from the same centres on Tuesday and those who received the first dose on August 9 and 10 will get the second dose on Wednesday.

The vaccine recipients who were inoculated on August 11 and 12 will receive second shots on September 9.

People who took their first shots from outside of city corporation areas on August 7 also got their second shots from the same centres on Tuesday.

Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and the first coronavirus-related death on March 18 the same year.