Staff Reporter :
A total of 343 people were hospitalized for the mosquito-borne dengue fever in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours as of 8am Tuesday, the highest single-day dengue cases so far this year, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.
Of them, 286 were admitted in Dhaka and 57 out of the capital, according to the figure reported by the DGHS under the Ministry of Health.
Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) has confirmed 52 deaths due to dengue as of Tuesday, said the DGHS.
Bangladesh is seeing the highest number of dengue cases since 2000, when the country first started to keep records of the disease. Dengue fever claimed 93 lives that year.
The capital city of Dhaka, which is densely populated with 20 million people, is one of the worst-hit spots in Bangladesh.
Currently, a total of 1,281 dengue patients are undergoing treatment at different hospitals and clinics across the country.
Among them, 1,133 patients are taking treatment in Dhaka division and 148 are hospitalized outside the capital, according to the DGHS.
Besides, a total of 12,434 patients have been admitted to different hospitals across the country with dengue fever since January this year. Of them, 11,101 patients have returned home after recovery, DGHS said.
Dengue season normally begins in Bangladesh when the monsoon rains arrive in June; historically, it has dissipated along with the rains in September.
But the dengue season has been getting longer due to impact of climate change, civic problems such as rapid and unplanned construction and ineffective sanitation practices.
Public health experts said dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease that is spread to humans by bites from the female Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Dengue symptoms can include severe bone and muscle pain – leading to its nickname, breakbone fever. Other effects are more flu-like, including a fever, headache and nausea.
