Bangladesh has reported its highest single-day coronavirus fatalities on Sunday, surpassing Saturday’s figure.

The health authorities confirmed 78 deaths during the last 24 hours till morning. A day earlier, the country recorded 77 fatalities, the highest since coronavirus cases were first reported in March last year.

Fatalities from Covid-19 rose to 9,739 as the mortality rate remained static at 1.42 percent for the third consecutive day.

Also read: Worsening Covid crisis: Bangladesh resorting to full lockdown

Bangladesh reported its first coronavirus death on March 18 last year. The virus claimed 568 lives in January this year, 281 in February and 638 in March.

Meanwhile, 5,819 new cases were reported, pushing the local tally to 684,756, according to a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The infection rate slipped to 19.81 percent from 20.49 percent of Saturday’s. So far, 5,002,865 samples, including 29,376 in the last 24 hours, have been tested.

After reporting over 7,000 cases between April 4 and April 9, the daily case count fell significantly in the last 48 hours.

Also read: Ongoing lockdown extended upto Apr 13: Quader

During the 24-hour period, 4,212 patients recovered, raising the number of recoveries to 576,590, the DGHS said.

A rise in cases prompted the government to enforce a seven-day lockdown from April 5 but later shops and shopping malls were allowed to remain open and public transport resumed in city corporation areas.

The lockdown will be extended until April 13. From the next day, the country will enter a “strict seven-day lockdown”.

74pc victims male

Of the deceased, 47 died in Dhaka division, 20 in Chattogram, four in Rajshahi, four in Khulna, two in Sylhet, and one in Rangpur.

As of now, 5,622 coronavirus patients died in Dhaka division, 1,754 in Chattogram, 529 in Rajshahi, 613 in Khulna, 289 in Barishal, 338 in Sylhet, 386 in Rangpur and 208 in Mymensingh.

Of the victims, 7,279 are men (74.74) and 2,460 women (25.26).

Also read: Global Covid-19 cases exceed 135 million with 2.9 million fatalities

Vaccination drive

The vaccination campaign launched on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India continues with experts calling for ramping up the drive.

On April 8, Bangladesh began its second phase of inoculating people against coronavirus amid uncertainty around vaccine availability.

Global cases surge

Coronavirus cases, first reported in China in December 2019, has so far infected over 135 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) tally.

So far, 2.9 million deaths have been reported.