Amid concern over the spread of Delta Variant  Bangladesh reported 198 more coronavirus-related deaths and 7,535 fresh infections in 24 hours till Tuesday morning.

The country has been seeing fatalities below 200 for the last five days, a slight improvement from the July 25- August 13 period when daily deaths were recorded over 200.

The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatality to 24,547 while the cases to 1,433,396, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)

The new cases were detected after testing 39,278 samples which lowered the case positivity rate to 19.18 % from Monday’s 21.08%.

The country is seeing over 8,500 cases on a daily average for the last seven days.

Bangladesh recorded its highest-ever 16,230 single day Covid cases on July 28.

Meanwhile, the case fatality rate remained unchanged at 1.71%, said the DGHS.

Also read: Covid cases, fatalities in Bangladesh mark fall for 4th day

During the period, the recovery rate rose to 91.73% with 12,950 more people recovering from the infection.

Dhaka being the worst hit region recorded 72 deaths today, followed by 52 in Chattogram, 26 in Khulna, 18 in Sylhet, nine in Rajshahi, eight in Mymensingh, seven in Barishal and six in Rangpur divisions.

Of them, 116 were men and 82 were women.

Also read: 10 more die of Covid at Rajshahi hospital

Vaccine procurement

Bangladesh, China and Incepta Pharmaceutical Ltd on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on coproduction of Sinopharm vaccine in Bangladesh. 

“Until the vaccine production starts fully Bangladesh will continue to procure more jabs from China, Russia and other countries,” said Health Minister Zahid Maleque Monday.

“As vaccines will be produced in the country after this deal it will play a big role in meeting our vaccine demand”, he added.

Zahid said Bangladesh has so far received 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines of which 15 million in the first phase and 5.4 million in the second phase have been administered already.

At the moment Bangladesh has a stock of 10 million vaccine doses, he said.

By August 22, five million more doses of Sinopharm vaccine will reach Bangladesh, he said.