Bangladesh on Sunday became the world's 20th worst-affected countries, making it the latest global hotspot for coronavirus pandemic, officials and physicians say.
In the last 24 hours ending on Friday, the country overtook the European hotspot of Belgium because of rising virus infections and fatalities.
Globally, Bangladesh is just behind Qatar to reach China where the first novel coronavirus case was reported in late last year.
In general, the 20 worst-affected countries are being globally treated as the hotspot with the dubious distinction of having more infections, according to healthcare experts.
To avert large-scale COVID-19 community transmission, they suggested scrapping the decision on easing shutdowns and applying hard lockdown across the country.
In the last 24 hours, the densely populated nation of over 170 million recorded another deadlier day, with 2,828 new cases and 30 deaths, official data showed.
This is the second-highest number of infections and fourth-biggest number of deaths that the country has recorded so far a day.
With the latest statistics, the overall number of infections and death toll related to the respiratory disease caused by the virus reached 60,391 and 811 respectively, according to state-run Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Disclosing the latest update of the pandemic through Friday's virtual news conference, DGHS additional director general (administration) Prof Dr Nasima Sultana said a total of 14,088 samples were tested in 50 labs across the country in the last 24 hours.
Of the tests, 2,828 samples were found COVID-19 positive along with 30 more deaths recorded across the country during the period, she said.
With these numbers, the overall tally of confirmed cases and deaths rose to 60391 and 811 respectively, she said.
Of the latest deaths, 12 were recorded in Chattogram division, followed by eleven in Dhaka, three in Sylhet, two in Rajshahi and one each in Rangpur and Barishal divisions, Dr Sultana said.
Simultaneously, 643 people recovered from the disease, taking the overall number of recovery to 12,804, she added.
The DGHS officials said as of May, 60,275 people remained in both home and institutional quarantine, while 5,141 others in isolation.
The bulk of infections and deaths came on the sixth day of easing lockdown by the government, allowing public transports and offices since May 31.
A former DGHS director Ashish Kumar said the country has not seen its virus curve flatten like many other worst-affected countries, even after 90 days of infections.
"It's because we did not implement lockdown and social distancing properly. We need to pay serious attention to it," he added.
Globally, more than 6.7 million people were infected with the novel coronavirus and 393,665 died until Sunday 6:30 pm, according to Worldometer that tracks coronavirus.
