Covid-19 claimed 22 more lives in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours until Saturday morning which is the lowest daily deaths in nearly two months.

The country saw 26 Covid deaths on Friday and 31 on Thursday.

With the latest deaths logged today, the official Covid-related death count in the country reached 12,124.

However, the mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.55%, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The country witnessed a sharp drop in the number of new cases as the tests have declined dramatically.

Only 261 infections were logged in the last 24 hours after examining 3,758 samples during the period.

The number of daily cases has been decreasing since the beginning of May, falling below 2,000.

Besides, the number of tests fell below 20, 00 on May 7 and has been on the wane since.

Also read: Covid-19: Ongoing lockdown to be extended until May 23

The country also confirmed 779,796 Covid-19 cases in total, says the DGHS handout.

The daily infection rate dropped to 6.95% from Friday's 10.82%, while the recovery rate stood at 92.52%.

Bangladesh has so far carried out 5,702,286 tests since reporting the first Covid-19 cases on March 8 last year and the first death from the virus on the 18th of the month.

The country experienced a surge in Covid-19 cases in April, recording its highest single-day cases of 7,626 on April 7. It witnessed over 100 deaths during April 16-19 and on April 25.

Lockdown extended till May 23

The government is going to extend the ongoing lockdown for another week until May 23 to stem the spread of Covid-19.

“The ongoing restrictions will be extended for another week and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given approval to it. A notification will be issued on Sunday,”  State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain told UNB on Friday.

The nationwide lockdown, imposed on April 5 to break the chain of Covid-19 infections and fatalities, has been extended several times to limit public movement and contain the surge in daily infections.

Also read: Global Covid cases approach 162 million

Vaccination drive

In late January, countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka started receiving vaccine doses through donations from India and other countries and commercial deals.

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

The government signed an agreement with Serum for 30 million doses. But India temporarily halted exports of vaccines on March 24 to prioritise domestic requirements, following an explosion in Covid cases and fatalities in the country.

The move has left the region with a serious shortage of vaccines.

The administering of the first dose in Bangladesh has 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 timely arrival of shipments from India.

5 lakh Chinese vaccine doses arrive

Bangladesh on Wednesday received 5 lakh doses of China's Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine as a gift.

Also read: 500 thousand doses of China’s gifted vaccine arrive in Bangladesh

The development came after the WHO listed the Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, giving a nod for it to be rolled out globally.

Initially reluctant Bangladesh approved the Chinese jabs along with Russia's Sputnik vaccine as the second wave of the pandemic hit the country with dwindling vaccine stock.