Bangladesh reported seven new Covid-19 deaths until early Friday, including six in Dhaka, taking the national tally to 8,182 since the pandemic began.

The country’s mortality rate stood at 1.52%, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

Also, Bangladesh confirmed a daily infection rate of 2.79% with 435 new cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the official infection toll to 537,465.

The country saw a daily infection rate of 3.34% on January 24, 4.90% on January 14, 8.29% on January 10, 7.52% on January 4, and 8.18% on January 1.

So far, 3,724,473 tests, including 15,566 new ones, have been carried out since the first cases were reported on March 8.

The overall infection rate stood at 14.43%. However, 482,424 patients – 89.76% – have recovered so far, the DGHS said.

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Covid-19 across the world

The global Covid-19 cases neared 105 million on early Friday despite a drop in the number of new infections for the third week in a row.

The total global Covid-19 caseload reached 104,935,668 while deaths from the virus infection touched 2,286,170, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The US remained the worst-hit, with 26,679,633 Covid-19 cases and 455,875 deaths.

Brazil’s total caseload rose to 9,396,293 and the death toll to 228,795. And India recorded 10,802,591 Covid-19 cases and 154,823 deaths.

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Vaccination in Bangladesh

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched a Covid-19 vaccination drive at Kurmitola General Hospital in the capital on January 27.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque said at the launch that seven million doses of Covid-19 vaccine are now available in the country. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is the safest one in the world.

For getting a shot, one needs to get registered at www.surokkha.gov.bd.

For now, the vaccination programme will be limited to five centres in the capital, and the nationwide inoculation will start in early February.