The Covid-19 fatalities in the country rose to 8,314 and the caseload to 541,877, according to the latest figures provided Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

In a handout, the DGHS said the daily coronavirus infection rate in Bangladesh fell to 2.67 percent from Tuesday’s 2.68 percent, while the overall infection rate stood at 13.92 percent, a little bit lower than yesterday’s 13.97.

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However, the mortality rate remained almost steady at 1.53 percent for the past few days, including Tuesday, said the handout, adding that 489,254 patients (90.29 pc) have recovered from the virus infection so far.

Till date, 3,893,654 samples have been tested, including 16,612 in the past 24 hours.

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

Vaccination in Bangladesh

The countrywide Covid-19 vaccination drive kicked off on February 7.

Bangladesh inked an agreement with the Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd, the world’s largest vaccine maker, for 30 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Serum will send five million doses each month between January and June.

Five million doses arrived in Jan and India gifted another two million doses as gift.

The government, determined to make the vaccination drive a success, brought down the age to 40 for registration to get jabs. The government is providing the vaccine for free.

So far, 60,602 people have received the first shot. After the first dose, the second one has to be taken within 8 to 12 weeks.

Also read: Is Bangladesh ready to distribute a Covid-19 vaccine?

Global Covid Situation

The number of global Covid-19 cases exceeded 109 million on Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

The global case count reached 109,555,318 while the death toll from the virus climbed to 2,420,451, according to the JHU.

The US, which remained the worst-hit country in the world, has registered 27,756,627 cases with 488,081 deaths.

Besides, Brazil reported 9,921,981 Covid-19 infections and 240,940 deaths.

Brazil has the world's second highest Covid-19 death toll after the United States and the third largest caseload after the USA and India.

India’s total caseload rose to 10,937,320 on Wednesday, while the death toll stood at 155,913, according to the JHU data.

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