Staff Reporter :
Director-General of Health Services Prof ABM Khurshid Alam, on Sunday warned of the “looming danger” of the aggravation coronavirus situation in the country amid people’s blatant disregard to health safety rules.
“Bad news will come if people do not follow the indoor and outdoor health safety measures to stem the spread of Covid-19,” said Alam, adding, “Bangladesh is witnessing a sudden surge in coronavirus cases as the people are not wearing masks, washing hands or following social distancing rules.”
He said, “Over the last two months, I’ve received no request for ICU beds. But I’ve been receiving calls over the last several days asking for ICU beds. Most of those who are contracting the disease now are requiring ICU support. Earlier, we’ve seen that only those with comorbidities needed ICU support.”
“We will face much greater trouble if we continue to ignore the health rules,” he warned.
The DGHS chief came up with the warming at the inauguration of a one-stop TB centre at Shyamoli’s Tuberculosis Hospital on Sunday.
He pointed out that those who are catching the disease are mostly young people and the infected are requiring intensive care.
Mentioning that all hospitals in Bangladesh were already advised to stay prepared for a second wave of the coronavirus, the DGHS chief said, “We’ve sent letters to the offices of civil surgeons, asking them to keep all ICUs ready.”
“We sat with directors of all the hospitals in Dhaka and the divisional cities and heard about what situation they are in. We asked them to keep all their beds ready. Be ready for the management of COVID patients.”
Alam also said that the local administration has been instructed to strengthen the health rules.
On whether the infection rate in Bangladesh was affected by the new variant of the virus detected in the United Kingdom and Africa, he said, “We are looking into the matter through genome sequencing.”
Meanwhile, Bangladesh has recorded a 67.27 per cent weekly spike in confirmed coronavirus cases.
The number of deaths among the patients has increased by 49.02 per cent in this period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The labs conducted 116,232 samples from Mar 7 to Mar 13, a 14.56 percent rise from the previous week. As many as 6,512 of the tests came back with positive results. The week saw 76 deaths from COVID-19, while 8,344 patients recovered.
In the previous week from Feb 28 to Mar 6, a total of 3,893 patients were confirmed to have caught the coronavirus after 101,497 samples were tested. The death toll in the week was 51, while 5,859 recovered from the disease.
Besides, the country witnessed 1,159 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours (till 8am Sunday), taking the total number of cases to 557, 395, according to a health bulletin released by the DGHS on Sunday.
This is the highest number of cases in two months and the four consecutive days when more than 1000 cases have been reported.
The last time more number of cases was reported on December 30, 2020, when there were 1,235 cases.
On January 10, the country last recorded a higher single-day caseload above the 1,000-mark (1,071 cases). Since then, the number remained below the 1,000 mark, until Wednesday when it shot to 1,018.
The month of March has been witnessing an upward trend of rising cases day by day. On March 1, 585 new (above 500) Covid-19 cases were recorded, after almost a month of a lower rate of infections.
Besides, the country recorded 18 more deaths from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours (till 8am Sunday), taking the number of total fatalities to 8,545 and the death rate stands at 1.53 percent.
The current virus positivity rate stands at 7.15 per cent while the total positivity rate at 13.07 per cent.
A total of 16,206 samples were tested across the country in 24 hours.
At least 1,385 Covid-19 patients have recovered during the period. The total number of recoveries now stands at 5,11,695 and the recovery rate at 91.80 per cent, according to DGHS.
