Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh has, so far, reported six cases of the new Covid-19 variant having similarities to the one detected in the UK.
ASM Alamgir, chief scientific officer of the IEDCR, confirmed the matter on Wednesday.
He said, six persons have, so far, tested positive for the new strains of the coronavirus and the vaccine is working on these properly.
“The new variant transmits more quickly than other strains. Bangladesh is observing it. But, the UK variant has no impact on the increase of the virus cases,” he added.
Earlier on December 24, 2020, Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) informed a new strain of coronavirus detected in Bangladesh in early November which has similarities to the new variant of the virus found in the UK.
Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18, 2020.
Meanwhile, Director General of DGHS Professor Dr A B MKhurshid Alam said at Mughda Hospital in the capital on Wednesday that genome sequencing is being made at three laboratories in Dhaka with new variant of Corona, which found similarity with UK.
On the other hand, Chief Scientific Officer of Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control And Research (IEDCR) ASM Alamgir said that 6 people in Bangladesh has been infected with new variant of Coronavirus which detected in Britain.
Earlier, the country recorded 1,018 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours till Wednesday morning, showing a sharp rise in the number of daily infections.
Seven Coronavirus-related deaths were reported during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). The daily infection rate jumped to 5.98 percent from 5.13 percent on Tuesday. But the mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.54 percent for the past few weeks, the DGHS said in a handout.
With the latest figure, the Covid-19 fatalities climbed to 8496 and total infections to 553,105, the handout added. Besides, it said, 1,264 people recovered from the virus infections during the period. So far, 506,613 patients (91.59 percent) have recovered.
Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8, 2020 and the first death on March 18 in the same year.
Authorities have so far tested 4,197,970 samples, including 17,032 in the past 24 hours.
