The death toll from the novel coronavirus infection in Bangladesh has surpassed 4,000, hitting another grim milestone in the pandemic that has upended millions of lives in the country.
The government said 45 new fatalities were registered in the 24 hours to 8:00am Tuesday, taking the total to 4,028.
The caseload surged to 299,628 after 2,545 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the same period, according to data released by the health directorate.
The number of recoveries in the last 24 hours outpaced fresh cases with another 3,881 patients overcoming the disease through treatment at home and in hospital care in the same period, bringing the total to 186,956.
A total of 14,153 samples were tested at 91 authorised labs across the country in the last 24 hours, with a positivity rate of 19.98 per cent.
The official figures take the recovery rate from COVID-19 to 62.33 percent, while the latest deaths of 32 men and 13 women took the mortality rate to 1.34 per cent.
Globally, over 23.67 million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus and 813,544 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
Bangladesh detected its first cases of the novel coronavirus infection on March 8. The first death was reported 10 days later.
Almost three months later, the body count reached the 1,000 mark on June 10. But the tally doubled in the space of the next 25 days on Jul 5 and it only took more 23 days for the toll to grow by another 1,000. The next 1,000 deaths were reported in the space of 28 days, reports bdnews24.com.