Nine more people died of COVID-19 and 309 more people were infected with the novel coronavirus in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours ending at 8:00am on Saturday.
With the new figures, the death toll from COVID-19 rose to 140 and the number of infected people rose to 4,998, said Directorate General of Health Services additional director general Nasima Sultana in the daily online bulletin on the coronavirus situation.
She said that 3,337 people were tested in the past 24 hours across the country and among them 309 people were found positive for COVID-19.
Nasima said that many labs did not provide test reports due to weekend on Friday, resulting in the low number of detection of infected patients on Saturday.
On Friday, 503 people were identified with COVID-19, which was the highest number so far for a single-day in the country.
Bangladesh on March 8 confirmed the first COVID-19 case and the first death from the viral disease on March 18.
Nasima said coronavirus spread to all but four districts of the country since the first infection in Narayanganj on March 8.
As of Saturday, only Satkhira and Jhenaidah in Khulna division and Rangamati and Khagrachari in Chattogram division did not witness any COVID-19 patients.
The capital city of Dhaka witnessed the highest number of cases so far, accounting for 2,228, which is 51.50 per cent of the total patients.
Districts in Dhaka division witnessed 1,454 cases, accounting for 33.61 per cent of cases.
Narayanganj (594), Gazipur (261), Kishoreganj (181) and Narsingdi (141) are the worst affected districts.
Among the nine deaths in the past 24 hours, three were in Dhaka, two in Narayanganj, and four others in four other districts, according to a DGHS official.
Of the dead, five were female and four were male while seven of them were above 70 years, one was in the fifties and one in the sixties.
No new people recovered from their infection in the past 24 hours. So far 112 people recovered from COVID-19 in the country.
Nasima said that two new labs were added to the list of COVID-19 testing labs in the country which are in Kushtia and Savar of Dhaka. Now 23 labs can test COVID-19.
She said that five new labs would begin operation in a week.
Nasima said that different media did news on oxygen shortage for COVID-19 patients but she said that there was no shortage of oxygen for such patients.
She said that 10,394 oxygen cylinders were now at hospitals in the districts and 13,745 were in the medical college hospitals.
Among them, 450 are at Kurmitola General Hospital and 120 for Kuwait-Bangladesh Friendship Hospital – both dedicated for COVID-19 patients in the capital.
She said that 3,050 more oxygen cylinders were under procurement.
Bangladesh has merely 192 ICU units for COVID-19 patients, though most of them were not fully operation because of shortage of necessary equipment, according to the DGHS.
