Bangladesh is seeing an increase in coronavirus fatalities, breaking its single-day death count record for the third time in as many days on Monday.

The health authorities confirmed 83 deaths in the afternoon, surpassing Sunday’s figure of 78. The number was 77 on Saturday.

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Fatalities from Covid-19 rose to 9,822 as the mortality rate remained static at 1.42 percent for the fourth consecutive day, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said in a handout.

Bangladesh announced 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.

Between 8am Sunday and 8am Monday, 7,201 new cases were recorded, pushing up the caseload 691,957.

The infection rate jumped to 20.59 percent from 19.81 percent of Sunday’s. So far, 5,037,833 samples, including 34,968 in the last 24 hours, have been tested.

Bangladesh has been seeing record number of infections with daily case count surpassing 7,000-mark earlier this month before falling significantly on April 10 and April 11.

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Meanwhile, 581,113 patients have recovered so far, including 4,523 in the last 24-hour period, the DGHS said.

A sharp rise in cases prompted the government to enforce a seven-day lockdown from April 5 but it was ineffective. The government extended the lockdown by two more days and announced to enforce a

“strict seven-day lockdown” from April 14.

All modes of public transports, including those of road, river, railway and air, will remain suspended during this period.

74pc victims male

Of the deceased, 54 died in Dhaka division, 17 in Chattogram, three in Rajshahi, four in Khulna, two each in Barishal, Sylhet and one in Rangpur.

As of now, 5,676 coronavirus patients died in Dhaka division, 1,771 in Chattogram, 532 in Rajshahi, 617 in Khulna, 291 in Barishal, 340 in Sylhet, 387 in Rangpur and 208 in Mymensingh.

Of the victims, 7,333 are men (74.66) and 2,489 women (25.34).

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Vaccination drive

The government launched a vaccination campaign on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India continues. Experts are calling for ramping up the drive and urging people to follow the health guidelines to keep themselves and others around them safe.

On April 8, Bangladesh began its second phase of inoculation amid uncertainty over vaccine availability.

Coronavirus cases were first reported in China in December 2019. Since then, nearly 136 million cases have been confirmed until Monday with 2.9 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) tally.