Home ›› 16 Aug 2021 ›› Front
Though Bangladesh for the third day in a row reported below 200 single-day deaths from Covid, the dengue situation in the capital and elsewhere in the country is getting worse each day with a death of 25 along with a record 6,100 dengue cases till Sunday.
According to a DGHS report, a total of 198 dengue positive patients were detected in a span of 24 hours till 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, rising the total caseload to 3,442 this month while at least 1,049 patients still remained admitted at different government and private hospitals across the country.
“A total of 25 samples of dengue-suspected dead patients were sent to the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research for confirmation till Sunday,” said the report of DGHS.
The number of hospitalised dengue patients in the capital is increasing sharply in the absence of effective measures of the city authorities to contain Aedes mosquitoes responsible for the viral disease. City residents are worried over the dengue outbreak at a time when the country is facing the Covid-19 crisis.
The Dengue situation started deteriorating at the end of July while the health department warned the local government institutions especially both the two city corporations to take necessary actions for combating the mosquito borne virus.
Entomologist Manjur A Chowdhury said, “The dengue situation might be worsened further as the breeding spots of Aedes mosquitos, responsible for the virus spread, still remained untouched.”
He alleged that the city corporations were not working in a scientific way to combat the dengue menace as they are busy, what he said, with some activities just for showing up themselves.
He, however, suggested destroying all the breeding spots in a scientific way and also thus killing all the adult mosquitoes by using quality insecticide.
In Bangladesh, Dengue is a seasonal issue which spreads only between March and October during the rainy season.
Dhaka North City Corporation mayor Md Atiquel Islam has, however, blamed the lack of public awareness for the spread of the mosquito born disease.
“As Aedes mosquito breeds at homes in stringent water, not in canals nor even in the city’s drains, we have launched a campaign to make people aware about it ,” he said.
He said, “I am requesting the people during my campaign to clean all sorts of stringent water at their homes every three days.
DNCC mayor Atiqul Islam has been campaigning for mass awareness to raise efforts against Aedes mosquitoes, dengue and Chikungunya since July 28.
But a large number of people have gathered at his programmes, ignoring Covid health rules like maintaining social distancing and raising the possibilities of further spread of Covid-19.
In 2020, the health directorate reported 1,193 dengue cases and three dengue deaths.
Some 1,01,350 dengue patients were hospitalised across the country with at least 276 of them dying of the fever in 2019.
In 2018, at least 10,148 people were diagnosed with the viral fever and 26 of them died of the disease.
In 2017, more than 13,000 people with chikungunya infection took treatment at hospitals while many others took treatment at home.
Covid-19 toll crosses 24,000-mark
Meanwhile, the number of detected novel coronavirus cases in Bangladesh on Sunday rose to 14,18, 902 as 6,684 more cases were reported in the last 24 hours ending at 8:00am on Sunday.
During that time, 187 more Covid-19 patients died raising the total deaths in the country to 24,175, said a press release of Directorate General of Health Services on Sunday.
The daily cases confirmed during the 24 hours period further dropped to 6,684, maintaining a steady fall for the last one week.
Bangladesh for the third day in a row reported below 200 single-day deaths from Covid-19 as 187 people died of the virus in the last 24 hours. After reporting the highest 264 deaths on 10 August, the number of single day deaths continued to decline with 197 and 178 casualties reported on the last two days respectively.
According to a regular DGHC press statement, with the new Covid-19 cases the country so far tallied 14,18,902 cases since the first Covid-19 case in Bangladesh on March 8, 2020, and the first Covid-19 death was recorded on March 18.
A total of 33,001 samples were tested in the last 24 hours until 8:00am and the rate of detection was 20.25 per cent.
The health directorate said as many as 11,371 people recovered from the highly infectious disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total recovery to 12, 92,698.
Among the 187 deceased, 101 were men and 86 were women. 183 died in hospital, one on the way to hospital while the rest are at homes.
Of the people who died in the last 24 hours, 101 were male and 86 female. Of the total deaths so far 15,943 were male and 8,232 female. A total of 71 people died in Dhaka division, 39 in Chattogram and 21 in Khulna division.
Of them, four were between 21-30 years of age, 10 were between 31-40, 20 were between 41-50, 40 were between 51-60, 58 between 61-70, 39 within 71-80, 14 between 81-90 and two were within 91-100 years old, added the release.
To combat the surge, the government had earlier declared repeated lockdowns and restrictions on movements. The restrictions have now been withdrawn after a 19-day of uninterrupted lockdown which continued till August 10.
The National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19, has, however, warned the government that the Covid might take a higher toll as the government hurriedly opened all businesses at the time when both the infection rate and the death rate was in increasing trend.
Putting aside such a warning, health minister Zahid Maleque said, “The government had to come to such a decision considering the livelihood of the country’s people.”
