Bangladesh confirms two more deaths from coronavirus, 9 new cases

Bangladesh today confirmed two more deaths from the novel coronavirus and nine new cases, raising the total number of positive diagnoses to 70. 

The official total number of people who have died with COVID-19 in the country is eight now, Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) Director Professor Dr Meerjady Sabrina Flora said in a virtual briefing.

"Among the two dead patients- one was aged around 90, had cardiac issues, died in Dhaka and another patient was aged 68, had stroke history, died outside Dhaka," the IEDCR director added.

She also said, "Five out of the nine newly diagnosed patients had history of contacts with coronavirus patients, two expatriates had foreign contacts and source of infection of two patients could not be traced. They are aged from under 10 to 90 years."

"30 coronavirus patients have recovered so far. Of the 32 under treatment patients, 12 are being treated at home and 20 at different hospitals currently," Dr Flora added.

Bangladesh has conducted 434 tests after collecting 553 samples within the last 24 hours. 

So far 92,000 coronavirus testing kits were collected and 21,000 distributed in different heath organisations and one lakh more will arrive in country by Wednesday.

Doctors of coronavirus hotlines received 66,803 calls in last 24 hours.

Some 457 people were sent to home quarantine, 12 in institutional quarantine in last 24 hours and a total of 64,953 people in quarantine so far.

Earlier, IEDCR confirmed the first death from coronavirus infection on March 18, second on March 21, third on March 23, fourth on March 24, fifth on March 25 and sixth death on April 1. 

Globally, 1,118,921 people have so far got infected with the highly contagious coronavirus and 58,937 have died from it, according to Johns Hopkins University data.