Bangladesh maintained a higher recovery rate of corona patients in the region despite controversy over the authenticity of statistics, officials and healthcare experts said.
With 880 more people recovering from the Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, the rate reached 40 per cent, which is the second-highest in South Asia, after India, where it is 56 per cent.
Officials at the state-run health department said they followed globally-recognised guidelines in calculating the number of recovered persons.
But healthcare experts term the sudden and unprecedented rise in the number of recovery as 'very surprising' and called upon the department to make public the list of people having recovered from home to help remove any confusion.
Directorate General of Health Services or DGHS revised the criteria twice that helped the rate of recovery shot up.
On May 3, 2020, the DGHS first came up with the revision including people having cured at home and it drove up the rate to 11.24 per cent from 2.1 per cent.
Since then, the recovery rate hovered at between 20 and 21 per cent until June 14. But on June 15, the rate jumped to 37.55 per cent following another revision.
Talking to the FE, DGHS director Habibur Rahman said the number increased significantly as they included a large number of people who recovered at home.
Earlier, they only had the statistics of persons who had their recovery at hospitals, he said, mentioning that a large number of corona patients were thought to be isolated beyond healthcare facilities.
"If they face no physical complications after 14 days, we, then, treat them recovered before enlisting. We followed the globally-recognised criterion for this," he added.
About such a huge jump in the recovery rate, public health rights activist Dr Rashid-e-Mahbub hailed the new figures.
But he called upon the authorities concerned to be more transparent in delivering statistics.
He said the recovery rate was just over 21 per cent as of June 14 last when less than 19,000 persons recovered.
But within a span of 24 hours, the rate climbed to 37.55 per cent by recording 15,297 more people having cured from the viral infections.
"It is surprising. It enhanced the rate manifold," he said, suggesting the DGHS disclose the data on the people who died from corona symptoms.
In contrast, the rate of fatalities is still 1.30 per cent with recording 43 more deaths registered across the country in the on Tuesday.
At online news conference, DGHS additional director general Prof Dr Nasima Sultana said a total of 16,292 samples were tested in 65 labs across the country in the last 24 hours.
With the tests, a total of 644,011 samples have so far been tested across the country.
Of the tests, some 3,412 samples were found Covid-19, she said.
With these numbers, the overall tally of confirmed cases and deaths rose to 119198 and 1,545 respectively, she said.
Sixteen of the latest deaths were recorded in Dhaka division, followed by 15 in Chattogram, five in Rajshahi, two in Mymensingh, two in Khulna and one each in Sylhet and Barishal divisions, Dr Sultana said.
Some 880 people recovered from the respiratory disease, bringing the overall number of recovery to 47,635, according to the health administration.
Globally, over 9.2 million people were infected with the novel pathogen and 475,077 died until Saturday 7:30 pm, according to Worldometer data.
The Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) on Tuesday extended the lockdown in Rajabazar area, the first red zone in the city, for one more week.
DNCC Mayor Atiqul Islam announced the extension of the lockdown while addressing the inaugural ceremony of an infectious waste collection programme at East Rajabazar.
"East Rajabazar was put on lockdown for 14 days as per the zone-wise map done by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) until midnight today (Tuesday). I have talked with them. They told me that the lockdown period in any area should continue for 21 days as per rules," he said.
"I now declare that the lockdown period for East Rajabazar has been extended by seven more days, thereby making it a total of 21 days," he added.
The mayor also warned that if the residents do not use separate bags for disposal of infectious wastes such as mask, gloves and personal protective equipment (PPE) and mix them with general kitchen wastes in one bag instead, cleaners of the city corporation will stop collecting those household wastes from July 07.
He said, "Many of us are mixing kitchen wastes with Covid-19 wastes, threatening public health."
"As we manage to keep Covid-19 at bay by wearing masks, gloves, maintaining social distancing, we also have to remain alert so that infectious wastes do not get mixed with kitchen wastes. We will distribute 300,000 bags among the residents to make sure that separate bags are used for infectious wastes," he said.
The residents subsequently will have to buy separate bags for disposal of Covid-19 wastes on their own, the mayor said, adding that the waste collectors will collect these bags on Saturday and Tuesday every week.
"These infectious wastes will be kept at the secondary transfer station of each zone. Later, they will be taken to the Matuail sanitary landfill site by a private company for incineration. If the infectious wastes are thrown out in the open, the risks of spreading Covid-19 will increase," he said.
The mayor also said extensive awareness campaign would be conducted in each ward. Each household of East Rajabazar having Covid-19 patients will get 10 bags for free from the city corporation.
He also thanked the residents of East Rajabazar for successfully maintaining the lockdown rules, which would act as an example while enforcing lockdown in other areas.
The DNCC piloted the lockdown measures in the first red zone of the city. The DGHS has marked 17 areas of DNCC and 28 areas of Dhaka South City Corporation as red zone. But the lockdown could not be enforced in other red zones as it could not complete the mapping of any other specific zone.
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