Bangladesh on Monday recorded its highest-ever daily coronavirus cases and fatalities in a 24-hour period.
The health authorities confirmed 9,964 new cases and 164 deaths from the virus, the Directorate General of Health Services said in a press release.
Latest fatalities pushed the national tally to 15,229 while the number of total confirmed cases stands at 9,54,881.
The daily infection rate soared to 29.30 per cent on Monday. It has remained above 10 per cent for the last 31 days.
But the mortality rate remained at 1.59 per cent, said the DGHS.
Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and the first coronavirus-related death on March 18 that year.
‘Strict’ lockdown extended
The government on Monday extended the ongoing strict Covid-19 restrictions by seven more days to stem the upsurge of virus cases.
The Cabinet Division issued a gazette notification extending the restrictions until July 14 midnight, a day after the National Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 recommended the extension.
Bangladesh, grappling with a rising number of cases, imposed a week-long nationwide restriction on public movement and activities from July 1.
Members of the Bangladesh Army and Border Guard Bangladesh, along with other law enforcement agencies, are working to enforce the restrictions.
Hundreds of people have been fined and arrested for violating the directives.
Vaccination drive continues
The government has so far approved the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinopharm (China), Sputnik-V (Russia), Pfizer-BioNTech (USA/Germany) and Crona Vac (China) and Janssen single-dose vaccines.
Bangladesh is currently administering the doses of Sinopharm vaccine and Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and also the second dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Meanwhile, the government on Monday allowed people aged 35 and above to register for Covid-19 vaccination. People aged 40 and above were earlier eligible to be registered for the inoculation.
The registration for the mass vaccination will resume on Thursday, said DGHS Director General ABM Khurshid Alam, adding that now farmers and workers are also being included in the registration process.
At present, vaccine registration is being done on a priority basis in three categories on Surokkha app, the DGHS chief said.
He confirmed the health authorities received a list of 1.45 lakh students of various public universities through University Grants Commission. The list was sent to the ICT Division for registration.
So far, 78,748 people received the first dose of China’s Sinopharm vaccine, and 2,237 have received the second dose of it.
Meanwhile, 2,742 people have received the first jab of the Pfizer vaccine, including 876 in the past 24 hours.
Of the Astrazeneca vaccine doses, 42,91,707 received the second shot and 58,20,015 the first one so far.
