UNB :
Bangladesh logged 38 more coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours till Saturday morning, taking the country’s fatalities to 12,348.
The daily infection rate rose to 8.41% from Friday’s 7.22%, said the Directorate General of Health Services.
Meanwhile, 1,028 new cases were reported after testing 12,230 samples.
Bangladesh reported 26 deaths on Friday after logging around 30 deaths for consecutive four days. The fatality rate rose to 1.57% after remaining static at 1.56% for six days.
The recovery rate stood at 92.65% as 759 people recovered in the last 24 hours. The overall recovery number is 729,798 till date.
Bangladesh has so far reported 787,726 coronavirus cases
The country has carried out 5,805,407 sample tests since reporting its first cases on March 8 last year and the first death on March 18, 2020.
Bangladesh launched its vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses purchased from India’s Serum Institute.
The administration of the first dose has remained suspended since April 26. Also, the country, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to vaccine shortage amid a delay in the timely arrival of shipments from India.
In the past 24 hours, no one received the first dose of the vaccine while 41,467 have received the second dose, said the health directorate.
The government signed an agreement with Serum for 30 million doses. But a record number of cases in India has made the delivery of the doses uncertain.
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen Friday reached out to global media to let the world know that Bangladesh is desperately looking for vaccines and ready to accept any shipment from any country.
“A large number of people in Bangladesh, who took the first dose of Oxford-AstraZeneca, could not get the second dose because we have run out of supplies,” the minister said.
Paying heed to Bangladesh’s request, China on Friday said it will send the second batch of 600,000 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine as gift.
The foreign minister on Thursday said the government was making its best efforts to get vaccines from multiple countries – the US, China, Canada, Russia and the UK – apart from its continuous request to India to meet Bangladesh’s urgent needs.
Bangladesh received 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine as a gift on May 12. The administering of the shots will begin by May 25-26, said Health Minister Zahid Maleque.
Also, the country would receive a minimum of 106,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine under the COVAX scheme, co-led by Gavi, Maleque said May 18.
Besides, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs Wednesday approved a proposal of the Health Services Division to import the Sinofarm Covid-19 vaccine.
