Bangladesh witnessed the biggest one-day jump of coronavirus cases on Thursday when the government confirmed 112 new cases.
One more patient under treatment also died during that period in the last 24 hours, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said in the 2.30pm ‘health bulletin’ of the government.
With that, the number of cases stood at 330 and deaths 21. Only 33 patients recovered so far.
The health minister, however, said the increase is due to the increasing number of testing.
“We have expanded the testing facilities. Now we can test in 16/17 places. In the last 24 hours we have tested 1097 samples,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday the government announced 54 new cases by testing 981 people.
The minister urged all to stay indoors and test if they feel ill. He also announced that they are increasing the number of ventilators from the 550. “We are buying 380 more”.
He also announced the opening of 4,600 bed isolation facilities in three places soon – 2000-bed at Bashundhara Convention Center, 1400-bed at Dhaka Norrth City Corporation market and 1200-bed in four multistoried buildings at Diyabari, Uttara.
Of the new patients, 70 are make and 42 female. There are patients even below the age of 10 years and above 60 years, said Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora, director of the IEDCR.
The person who died was a 60-year old male in Dhaka.
Most of the new cases were found in Dhaka (62) followed by Narayanaganj (13) which is already declared as a hotspot. The government cut the district from the rest of the country.
“We are getting more and more patients from Narayanaganj and we have found so many patients from other districts who have been in Narayanaganj,” Prof Flora said.
“This confirms the need of your staying at home,” she told the countrymen, adding that staying at home is the ‘best participation’ of a person to the government effort of containing this crisis.
The government is enforcing social distancing measures by closing everything except emergency services till Aril 14.
