Bangladesh 30th most infected country, as cases cross 22,000

Bangladesh is now the 30th most infected country in terms of confirmed Covid-19 cases, with more than 22,000 positive cases as of Sunday morning.

During the last 24 hours, 1,273 new cases have been detected, taking the number of confirmed cases to 22,268.

During the same period, 14 new deaths were registered, taking the total death count to 328, according to the health ministry data.

With as many as 91,314 confirmed cases, neighbouring India is the 11th most infected country worldwide and second in Asia.

Bangladesh is 9th among Asian countries, just below the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE has only 359 cases more than Bangladesh.

India also surpassed China in terms of confirmed Covid-19 cases yesterday.

China, the origin country of Covid-19, is now at 13th position and has so far reported 82,947 positive cases and 4,633 deaths.   

Meanwhile, Western Asian and world's 18th most populous country Iran topped among the Asian countries in terms of the number of positive cases. The country so far confirmed 118,392 positive cases of the novel coronavirus, with 6,937 deaths.

Inside Bangladesh

The number of positive cases in Dhaka crossed 9,000, which is 59.09 percent of the total confirmed cases as of May 16, according to the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).

Outside Dhaka, Chattogram on Saturday saw a big rise in Covid-19 cases with 66 being tested positive in a day, followed by Rangpur with 40, Chuadanga with 38. Chattogram is currently in the 3rd position among the districts in terms of confirmed cases with 619 testing positive so far.

The 2nd most infected district is Narayanganj. The district saw 35 new cases on Saturday with 1,400 testing positive for the virus so far. 

Cox's Bazar, Feni, Gazipur, Cumilla, Jashore, Noakhali, Joypurhat have also seen some large increases in the number of positive Covid-19 cases recently. 

This is a clear sign that the outbreak of Covid-19 is currently at the community level. More than 8,100 tests were conducted on the last day, taking the total number of tests to over 1.75 lakh so far.

By testing 8,114 samples on Sunday, Bangladesh found 15.7 percent of them positive.  This is the second-largest daily confirmed cases per 100 tests.

The previous record was 17.7 percent on April 20. On that day, 492 among 2,779 samples came positive.

Earlier on Thursday, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that the number of tests conducted to diagnose Covid-19 would be increased to 15,000 per day.

If it's done, with today's rate, Bangladesh will see more than 2,350 positive cases every day.

Amid the increasing number of positive cases across the country, the government allowed some apparel factories and shopping spots to reopen, which increased the risk of the virus spreading to more people.

Globally, more than 4,739,000 people have so far been infected in 188 countries with the highly contagious coronavirus, and more than 313,000 deaths have been recorded, according to Johns Hopkins University.