Chandpur, Cumilla, Brahmanbaria and Munshiganj have a morality rate of over 4 per cent among COVID-19 patients, while the average rate in all 64 districts is 1.59 per cent.
The four districts lie close by with Munshiganj in Dhaka Division and the rest in Chattogram Division, reports bdnews24.com.
The number of deaths from the disease is far too high in Dhaka and Chattogram districts than the others, but they are below the average rate compared with the number of infections.
Chanpur has recorded 283 deaths among 5,187 coronavirus patients detected since the pandemic began. So, the mortality rate stands at 5.46 per cent, or the highest in Bangladesh.
In nearby Cumilla, the rate is 5.04 per cent with 685 deaths out of 13,598 patients. The number of fatalities in the district is the third-largest after Dhaka and Chattogram.
Brahmanbaria has posted a death rate of 4.9 per cent and Munshiganj a touch below at 4.07 per cent.
No other district has more than a 4 per cent mortality rate from COVID-19.
The rate, however, is higher in the districts neighbouring Chandpur, Cumilla, Brahmanbaria and Munshiganj than the others.
Lakshmipur has a coronavirus death rate of 3.57 per cent, Feni 3.6 per cent, Narayanganj 3.33 per cent, and Narsingdi 3.19 per cent.
The other districts with an over 3 per cent coronavirus death rate are Manikganj, Natrakona, Patuakhali, Chuadanga, Kushtia and Meherpur.
On Friday, Bangladesh logged 108 new COVID-19 deaths in the daily count, the highest in over two months, taking the toll to 13,976, as cases surged by 5,869 to 878,804.
The number of confirmed cases in Dhaka district, including the capital, is the highest among all the districts – 509,253. The death toll in the district, 5,436, is also the highest. But the mortality rate is 1.7 per cent.
The second-placed Chattogram has a death rate of 1.38 per cent with 785 fatalities among 56,928 confirmed cases.
The top doctors of Chandpur, Brahmanbaria, Cumilla and Munshiganj blame a lack of preparations in the beginning of the outbreak and high mobility due to easy communication facilities for the high COVID death rates.
The coronavirus spread easily in the district because it has launch services with Dhaka and Narayanganj, said Chandpur Civil Surgeon Dr Md Shakhawat Ullah.
“And no one follows the health guidance. We also had limitations in medical care in the beginning. Now the death rate has dropped,” said Dr Shakhawat.
Asked what the limitations were, the civil surgeon cited a lack of central oxygen systems and a high flow nasal cannula.
Dr Mir Mobarak Hossain, the civil surgeon of Cumilla, also said that a lack of preparations, in the beginning, caused many deaths while the people are unwilling to take hospital care for COVID-19.
“Now we have ICUs and other facilities.”
He ruled out the highly infectious Delta variant as a cause behind the high death rate, although the district borders India, where the variant caused a devastating wave of infections.
Public health expert Dr Mushtuq Husain, who advises government agencies on COVID-19, is not eager to give importance to the high death rates in the four districts because he believes the authorities lack data.
“The death rate is almost the same across the country. It appears more in some places because the data are not correct. Most people are diagnosed at one place but die at another place.
“Our country has not experienced a concentrated outbreak where many people die in one place. It happened in India’s Delhi or New York in the US,” he said.
