Amid the growing concern over the rapidly increasing cases and the higher transmissibility of Delta variant, Bangladesh registered 2,436 new Covid cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning.
The deadly virus also claimed 47 more lives during the period, pushing up the fatalities to 13,118, said a handout released by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The fatality rate rose to 1.59% on Saturday from Friday’s 1.58% and it remained unchanged, said the DGHS handout.
The caseload reached 8,26,922 with the logging of the new cases.
The positivity rate declined to 12.99 percent on Sunday from Saturday’s 14.12 percent.
Of the deceased, Dhaka division recorded the highest 15 deaths.
So far, the country has completed testing of 61,75,112 samples, including 18,750 in the last 24 hours.
Of the deceased, all but one were 30 years of age. Of them, 29 were over 60-plus age group.
Vaccination drive
Bangladesh, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to vaccine shortage amid a delay in the arrival of shipments from India.
Some 42,05,167 people got the second dose of this vaccine while the number is 58,20,015 for the first one.
Besides, the total number of people receiving their first jab of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is 2,162.
So far, four vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield), Sputnik-V, Sinopharm, and Pfizer-BioNTech – have got the approval for emergency use in Bangladesh.
Vaccine procurement update
Bangladesh will soon receive 10 lakh and 800 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine soon under COVAX facility, said Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Friday.
Bangladesh Ambassador to the US conveyed the message of this development to the Foreign Minister.
Bangladesh, earlier sought 2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine doses from the US for addressing Bangladesh’s immediate needs but the US is yet to reply on that particular request.
China will deliver the second consignment of vaccine doses for Bangladesh as a gift of its government by June 13.
Dr Momen said Bangladesh will send two special flights to bring 6 lakh Sinopharm vaccine doses and other medical supplies from China.
Just nine days after the arrival of the first batch of 500,000 doses of gifted vaccine in Bangladesh, China announced the provision of the second batch of gift doses to Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, seven million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield reached Bangladesh and India.
Source: United News of Bangladesh