Staff Reporter :
Highly contagious ‘Delta’ variant has been detected among almost 80 per cent of the COVID-19 infected people in Bangladesh after examining their samples over the last two months, a study finds.
The results of the study, carried out by Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), was released on Tuesday.
IEDCR’s chief scintific officer ASM Alamgir said Delta variant was found among 80 per cent of the COVID-19 infected people through genome sequencing of their samples during the months of May and June 2021.
Besides, the South African variant was detected among 10 to 12 per cent of the infected people.
He said the samples were collected randomly from all parts of the country.
The coronavirus infected started rising in the country since the middle of May. The coornavirus infection had spread rapidly in the districts bordering with India after Eid-ul-Fitr.
Later, the infection spread to the nearby districts.
On Monday, record 8,364 persons were infected with coronavirus in just 24 hours. The number was the highest in terms of detection of COVID-19 so far. A total of 119 patients died in the preceding 24 hours in the country.
On Tuesday, 7,666 new patients with COVID positive were identified in 24 hours in the country. With them, the number of COVID-19 infected patients in Bangladesh has stood at 9,04,436. Of them, 100,000 patients were identified in less than one month.
In order to contain the deadly coronavirus transmission, plying of all kinds of public transports was suspended from Monday morning, while markets and shopping malls were also shut down. An strict lockdown is set to start in the country from Thursday morning when all government and private offices will be closed.
Delta has at least a dozen mutations, including several on its spike protein that make it vastly more contagious and possibly more lethal and vaccine-resistant than other strains.
In India, the Delta variant contributed to the most devastating coronavirus wave the world has seen so far; now it has been detected in dozens of countries, including the United States.
