Dengue fatalities now 278 with two more deaths

With two more deaths reported from dengue in 24 hours till Monday morning, the official death toll from the mosquito-borne disease rose to 278 this year.

During this period, 106 more patients, including 43 in Dhaka city, were hospitalised, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

A total of 447 dengue patients, including 243 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.

The DGHS has recorded 62,127 dengue cases and 61,402 recoveries so far this year.

On December 16, the DGHS reported this year’s total number of fatalities as 269, which is by far the highest ever recorded in a single year in Bangladesh, far outstripping the previous record of 179 deaths against 1,01,354 cases recorded in 2019.

That means a 50 per cent jump in the number of deaths, despite a 40 per cent decline in cases from 2019.

The significantly increased case fatality rate could be down to the discovery of a new strain of the virus previously never spotted in Bangladesh, that DGHS scientists reported back in August.

Generally, it is seen that severe dengue disease is most common in those who suffer a second infection, usually by a different strain to the first.

The chances of that naturally increase with the introduction of a new strain in the environment. There are four known strains of the dengue virus.