Bangladesh's coronavirus deaths have approached 2,000 and cases reached 159,679, as the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) reported 29 deaths and 3,288 cases on Saturday.
The new deaths bring the country’s virus toll to 1,997, the DGHS said while briefing the media live about the latest coronavirus situation in the country at 2:30pm.
It also confirmed 2,673 recoveries from the contagion in the 24 hours to 8:00am on Saturday, taking the total recovery tally to 70,721.
The virtual briefing was also told that 14,727 tests were conducted during the last 24 hours under review.
Bangladesh first confirmed its coronavirus cases and death on March 08 and March 18 respectively, and since March 26 it enforced a 66-day shutdown in parallel with general holidays.
But that shutdown did little to slow the coronavirus spread as numbers of cases continued to increase.
Records show that Bangladesh in March conducted 1,602 tests and confirmed 51 cases, five deaths and 25 recoveries while in April it was 63,064 tests, 7,616 cases, 163 deaths and 135 recoveries.
In May the country carried out 244,264 tests and confirmed 39,486 cases, 482 deaths and 9,621 recoveries while in June, it was 460,530 tests, 98,330 cases, 1,197 deaths and 49,843 recoveries.
And this July month, which has rolled into the fourth day today, has so far witnessed 65,604 tests, 14,193 cases, 150 deaths and 11,097 recoveries.
Bangladesh has since June 05 become one of the 20 largest coronavirus outbreaks in the world, overtaking the then European hotspot of Belgium as the 20th worst affected country.
Currently, in South Asia, only Pakistan and India have more cases, while globally, 17 countries, including those two, have more cases than Bangladesh.
According to Reuters, some observers fear the contagion is under-reported in densely populated, impoverished Bangladesh. It has almost three times Italy's population but has done far fewer tests.
Globally, 11,205,347 people have caught coronavirus, 529,388 died and 6,354,947 recovered as of 2:30 pm, with the US becoming the worst-hit country with 2,890,588 cases and 132,101 deaths, according to the worldometer.info.
