Covid-19 in Bangladesh: 10 more deaths push up toll to 8,451

 Bangladesh recorded 10 more Coronavirus related deaths and 540 new cases in the last 24 hours till Saturday morning, showing a slight fall in daily infection rate.

Some 822 people have recovered from the virus infections during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

With the fresh cases, the number of total cases rose to 549,724 in the country.

The daily infection rate stood at 4.13 percent which was 4.63 percent on Friday. The overall infection rate slightly fell to 13.30 percent, which was 13.33 percent on Friday.

But the mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.54 percent for the past few days, the DGHS said in a handout. So far, 501, 966 patients (91.31 percent) have recovered from the Covid-19.

Authorities have so far tested 41, 32,113 samples, including 13,082 in the past 24 hours.

Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18.

Vaccination drive in Bangladesh

Bangladesh launched its nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive on February 7.

By Wednesday, 3,460,159 people received the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The second dose has to be taken between 8 and 12 weeks of the first one.

The government is providing the vaccine for free. It signed an agreement with India's Serum Institute for 30 million doses of the vaccine.

The institute will provide five million doses every month between January and June.

The people, who are 40 or above, can register for getting vaccinated at www.surokkha.gov.bd as the on-spot registration system has been revoked.

Besides, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that the age limit for getting the coronavirus vaccine will be revised once more vaccine doses are available in the country.

Global Covid-19 Situation

The global Covid caseload hit another grim milestone on Saturday as it surpassed the 116 million mark.

The total case count and death toll now stand at 116,042,835 and 2,579,776, respectively,as per the latest data released by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) on early Saturday.

The US remains the world's worst-hit country, with 28, 889,907 Covid cases and 522,756 deaths to date, according to the university's tally. The US death toll crossed 500,000 million on February 22.

Brazil ranks second worldwide after the United States in terms of the number of deaths from Covid and third in terms of the number of confirmed cases, after the United States and India.

The country has registered 10,869,227 cases and 262,770 deaths so far, as per the data.

Meanwhile, India’s total caseload has reached 11,173,761 with 157,548 fatalities, according to the latest figures.