Staff Reporter :
The month of July may be an important time for coronavirus infections in Bangladesh, the health experts expressed their concern over the issue.
The Muslim community of Bangladesh is going to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, the second largest religious festival in the country in the end of this month.
The experts said people’s movement ahead of Eid, buying sacrificial cattle and mismanagement in cattle market would accelerate the infection.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), on Monday confirmed 3,201 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total count to 1,65,618 and 2,096 death since the country’s maiden case was diagnosed on March 8 this year.
Bangladesh is averagely reported more than 3,000 Covid-19 infection per day. Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research’s (IEDCR) Chief Scientific Officer ASM Alamgir said, the rate of coronavirus infection was stable in the last few weeks. “We are deeply observing the virus infection rate after the opening announcement of offices, shops and readymade garments where it has shown low infection rate.
“The reproduction rate of the virus, called R-Knot, has dropped below 1 in the last two weeks in Bangladesh, which is a positive sign,” he said. R-knots is a system where the scientists try to understand how many people a person has the ability to infect.
“We see in the analysis of the data that if all the control measures are put together, the infection will start to decrease by the end of July.”
However, he fears that if the trend of movement of people to go to the cattle market during Eid-ul-Azha situation will be worse.
Sharmin Yasmin, Chair person of the Public Health Foundation, Bangladesh, said, there are two challenges for Bangladesh. One is Eid and another is flood in many places. As such, it is very difficult for people to follow the health guidelines.
She suggested that those who go to the cattle market to buy or sell cows should have co-ordination in terms of health protection.
Experts say that during Eid al-Azha, if people disrespect social distance and health precautions, it can have a negative impact in the society.
ASM Alamgir said, “Public holiday was declared at the right time after the infection started. But since then we have made many small unintentional mistakes.”
“For example, on April 5, the garment factories brought a group of workers to Dhaka,” he said. They returned again. It was unfair.
