A report in The Economist, a leading UK-based international weekly, claims that the actual number of people infected with the coronavirus is much higher than the official figures in Bangladesh and other South Asian countries.
The report titled ‘Infections are on the rise in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan’ said that low-level testing could mean the actual number could be even worse.
According to the report, John Clemens of icddr,b (International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh) estimates that Dhaka may already have as many as 750,000 coronavirus cases."
Regarding the easing of lockdown in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan last week, the report said, “The freeing of 1.7bn people, more than a fifth of humanity, from varied restrictions will bring relief to the region’s battered economies.”
“In South Asia, they managed only to moderate the disease’s acceleration, but not to halt it. The lifting of the lockdowns, in turn, is likely to hasten its spread again,” the report warned.
“With some 350,000 confirmed cases and fewer than 9,000 deaths so far, the region’s toll looks relatively modest. Yet those numbers disguise both widespread undercounting and a rate of growth that was frightening even before the lifting of restrictions,” it said.
In Bangladesh, 35 patients died from Covid-19 in the country over the last 24 hours as of Saturday, taking the death toll to 846. Besides, 2,635 more people tested positive for the virus, which makes 63,026 confirmed cases in total.
