Grim alarm over Covid, dengue surge

The continued rise in daily fatalities from the Covid-19 virus coupled with growing number of dengue infections has made the country's health care systems increasingly difficult to cope with the grim situation across the country. Yesterday alone, there were 246 Covid fatalities while 287 dengue patients were hospitalized across the country. 

With 246 deaths on Monday, the total Covid fatalities during the past three days of August jumped to close to 700. On 1st August there were 218 deaths followed by 231 on the previous day, taking the  total death toll to 21,162  as of Monday. In addition, some 15,989 people were infected with the virus on Monday bringing the total infection to 12 lakh 80 thousand 317.

July was the worst month for Covid-19 casualties when 6,182 fatalities  and 336,226 new infections were reported during the period. The July death toll was estimated at 29.87 percent of the total fatalities while the new infections were 26.91 percent of the caseload. 

The Directorate General of Health Services pointed out in a health bulletin that Bangladesh saw nearly a third of the total Covid-19 deaths and over a fourth of the total cases in July after posting the lowest number of only 1,077 cases in February.

After the second wave of infections had begun, the death toll in April was 2,404 among 147,837 coronavirus cases, the highest before July. The government confirmed 112,718 infections in June, with 1,884 deaths from COVID-19.

By the end of June, however, the infections and deaths shattered previous daily records as the outbreak surged in the rural areas with the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

In July, the daily counts increased by a record pace with over 10,000 cases and more than 200 deaths almost all the days of the month.

According to the government, the health workers across the country collected 56,157 samples, tested 53,877 and detected 16,230 coronavirus cases on July 28, the highest numbers in the pandemic. 

A day earlier, Bangladesh reported the highest number of 258 deaths from Covid-19 in the daily count. Only one person died from the disease, the lowest, on Mar 18. The case positivity rate shoot up to record 32.55 percent on July 24.

In the seven days to Jul 31, the weekly number of deaths rose by 19.03 percent to 1,639. The number cases in this period also increased by 57.78 percent to 96,140.

Meanwhile, health authorities reported 287 new dengue cases in the last 24 hours till Monday morning, the highest recorded this year so far amid a spike in the Aedes mosquito-borne disease in the country.

Bangladesh has been seeing over 100 dengue patients for more than a week, adding worries to the country’s health services, already overwhelmed with growing Covid-19 cases and fatalities.

Of the new cases, most were reported in Dhaka while only a few were reported hospitalised outside Dhaka, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

According to the (DGHS), currently, 978 patients are receiving treatment at different hospitals across the country, while just 38 of them were listed outside the Dhaka division. Some 3,182 patients have been admitted to different hospitals with dengue since January - 2,200 of them have been released after recovery. The DGHS reported 1,877 dengue cases and three confirmed dengue-related deaths in 2020.

Official figures state 101,354 dengue cases and 179 deaths were recorded in Bangladesh in 2019.

Dengue fever was first reported in Bangladesh in 2000, claiming 93 lives that year. In the years that followed, the country learned to deal with the disease much better, but it did become endemic.