Amid the growing trend in both the Coronavirus infections and fatalities, Bangladesh logged 41 more deaths, pushing up the death toll to 12,660.

Besides, health authorities detected 1,765 new cases after testing 18,250 samples during the period.

The country’s daily death record remained below 40 since May 25 while it stayed below 50 since May 9.

With the new cases, the total caseload rose to 8,02,305, said a handout of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The daily infection rate slightly increased to 9.47 percent from Monday’s 9.41 percent while the mortality rate remained static at 1.58 percent.

The country has so far tested 59,65,763 samples.

Read:Covid: WHO renames UK and other variants with Greek letters

The DGHS handout says 92.50% of the people infected till now have recovered, including 1,779 who tested negative during the period.

Bangladesh reported its first Coronavirus cases on March 8 last year and the first death on the 18th of that month.

Vaccine procurement

The first batch of 1.06 lakh doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine arrived in Dhaka on Monday night under the global vaccine initiative Covax facility.

On May 27, the Directorate General of Drug Administration approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine.

So far, four vaccines – Oxford-AstraZeneca (Covishield), Sputnik-V, Sinopharm, and Pfizer-BioNTech – have got emergency use authorisation in Bangladesh.

Read:Magura runs out of Covid jabs, suspends vaccination

The Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on May 27 gave the final approval to a proposal of the Health and Family Welfare Ministry to procure 1.5 crore Chinese Sinofarm Covid-19 vaccine.

As per the approval, the Health Services Division under the Health and Family Welfare Ministry will procure a total of 15 million (1.5 crore) vaccine doses in the next three months—June, July and August.

Vaccination drive

Bangladesh launched its vaccination drive on February 7 with Oxford-AstraZeneca doses purchased from India's Serum Institute.

The administration of the first dose remained suspended since April 26.

Also, the country, the prime recipient of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, has suspended the registration for Covid-19 jabs due to vaccine shortage amid a delay in the arrival of shipments from India.

However, the administering of the 1st dose of Chinese Sinopharm vaccine against Covid-19 began in Bangladesh on May 25.