COVID-19
With virus on the prowl, Mangal Shobhajatra bites the dust again this year
Considering the upsurge in the country's Covid-19 situation, Dhaka University has formally called off the Mangal Shobhajatra, or March of Good Tidings, a colourful procession at dawn to usher in the Bengali New Year on the University campus.
Also read: Pahela Baishakh celebrated without outdoor programmes
The university authorities circulated the decision in a press release issued by its public relations office.
Students of DU Fine Arts have been organising Mangal Shobhajatra since 1989. The colourful procession, which even made into UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016, has become a signature event of Pahela Baishakh celebration in Bangladesh.
Also read: Next Pahela Baishakh celebration in COVID-19 free Bangladesh: Minister
Every year, the procession centres on a theme relevant to the country's sociocultural milieu.
It usually features various animal-shaped carnival floats, large colourful masks, replicas of birds, butterflies, traditional dolls and other motifs of Bangladeshi culture that highlight the traditional folklore of Bangladesh.
Also read: A colourless Pahela Baishakh
Covid-19: Bangladesh shatters single-day death count record again
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.
Also read:Shots in little arms: COVID-19 vaccine testing turns to kids
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.
Also read:Are some Covid-19 vaccines more effective than others?
Meanwhile, 581,113 patients have recovered so far, including 4,523 in the last 24-hour period, the DGHS said.
Top official admits Chinese vaccines have low effectiveness
In a rare admission of the weakness of Chinese coronavirus vaccines, the country’s top disease control official says their effectiveness is low and the government is considering mixing them to get a boost.
Chinese vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates,” said the director of the China Centers for Disease Control, Gao Fu, at a conference Saturday in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Beijing has distributed hundreds of millions of doses abroad while trying to promote doubt about the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine made using the previously experimental messenger RNA, or mRNA, process.
“It’s now under formal consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process,” Gao said.
Officials at a news conference Sunday didn’t respond directly to questions about Gao’s comment or possible changes in official plans. But another CDC official said developers are working on mRNA-based vaccines.
Gao did not respond to a phone call requesting further comment.
Also read: Sinovac: CoronaVac vaccine effective in children
“The mRNA vaccines developed in our country have also entered the clinical trial stage,” said the official, Wang Huaqing. He gave no timeline for possible use.
Experts say mixing vaccines, or sequential immunization, might boost effectiveness. Researchers in Britain are studying a possible combination of Pfizer-BioNTech and the traditional AstraZeneca vaccine.
The coronavirus pandemic, which began in central China in late 2019, marks the first time the Chinese drug industry has played a role in responding to a global health emergency.
Vaccines made by Sinovac, a private company, and Sinopharm, a state-owned firm, have made up the majority of Chinese vaccines distributed to several dozen countries including Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Brazil and Turkey.
Also Read: India giving COVID-19 vaccines to more people as cases rise
The effectiveness of a Sinovac vaccine at preventing symptomatic infections was found to be as low as 50.4% by researchers in Brazil, near the 50% threshold at which health experts say a vaccine is useful. By comparison, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been found to be 97% effective.
Health experts say Chinese vaccines are unlikely to be sold to the United States, western Europe and Japan due to the complexity of the approval process.
A Sinovac spokesman, Liu Peicheng, acknowledged varying levels of effectiveness have been found but said that can be due to the age of people in a study, the strain of virus and other factors.
Beijing has yet to approve any foreign vaccines for use in China.
Gao gave no details of possible changes in strategy but cited mRNA as a possibility.
“Everyone should consider the benefits mRNA vaccines can bring for humanity,” Gao said. “We must follow it carefully and not ignore it just because we already have several types of vaccines already.”
Gao previously questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines. He was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying in December he couldn’t rule out negative side effects because they were being used for the first time on healthy people.
Chinese state media and popular health and science blogs also have questioned the safety and effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
As of April 2, some 34 million people in China have received both of the two doses required for Chinese vaccines and about 65 million received one, according to Gao.
The Sinovac spokesman, Liu, said studies find protection “may be better” if time between vaccinations is longer than the current 14 days but gave no indication that might be made standard practice.
Brazil’s virus outlook darkens amid vaccine supply snags
April is shaping up to be Brazil’s darkest month yet in the pandemic, with hospitals struggling with a crush of patients, deaths on track for record highs and few signs of a reprieve from a troubled vaccination program in Latin America’s largest nation.
The Health Ministry has cut its outlook for vaccine supplies in April three times already, to half their initial level, and the country’s two biggest laboratories are facing supply constraints.
The delays also mean tens of thousands more deaths as the particularly contagious P.1 variant of COVID-19 sweeps Brazil. It has recorded about 350,000 of the 2.9 million virus deaths worldwide, behind only the U.S. toll of over 560,000.
Brazil’s seven-day rolling average has increased to 2,820 deaths per day, compared with the global average of 10,608 per day, according to data through April 8 from Johns Hopkins University.
The death toll is forecast to continue rising in the next two weeks to an average of nearly 3,500 per day before receding, according to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Public health experts blame President Jair Bolsonaro for refusing to enact strict measures to halt infections and for clashing with governors and mayors who did.
Failure to control the spread has been compounded by the Health Ministry betting big on a single vaccine, AstraZeneca, then buying only one backup, the Chinese-manufactured CoronaVac, after supply problems emerged. Authorities ignored other producers and squandered opportunities until it was too late to get large quantities of vaccine for the first half of 2021.
Also read: Brazil becomes 2nd nation to top 300,000 COVID-19 deaths
With extensive experience in successful, massive vaccination programs, Brazil should have known better, said Claudio Maierovitch, former head of Brazil’s health regulator.
“The big problem is that Brazil did not look for alternatives when it had the chance,” he said. “When several countries were placing their bets, signing contracts with different suppliers, the Brazilian government didn’t even have vaccination on its agenda.”
For months, Bolsonaro’s administration ignored pleas to sign more than one contract for vaccines. The president publicly questioned the reliability of other shots and scoffed at contractual terms, suggesting that recipients of the Pfizer vaccine would have no legal recourse were they to transform into alligators. He insisted he wouldn’t force anyone to get vaccinated and only recently said he might get a shot himself.
Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute that advocates for expanding global vaccine access, said she despaired at the government strategy. Brazil has been far and away Latin America’s immunization front-runner, so much so that she hadn’t seen it in the same league as the region’s other countries.
Also Read: Brazil reports 37,614 new COVID-19 cases
Given the problems in vaccine development and distribution, “it’s definitely not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket,” she said from Washington.
Stalled supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine in January amid pressure for Brazil to begin its vaccination campaign prompted the Health Ministry to acquire tens of millions of shots from Sao Paulo state’s Butantan Institute, which is mixing an active ingredient from China with a sterile solution and bottling it. The shots were the fruit of the state’s negotiations with Chinese company Sinovac and went ahead despite Bolsonaro’s criticisms.
Brazil’s government also dragged its feet in signing on to the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative providing vaccines to poorer nations. It ultimately bought the bare minimum — enough for 10% of its population of 210 million.
“I was so anxious when that was going on; I couldn’t believe they weren’t going to sign it,” said Garrett, who is Brazilian. “When I heard they signed, I was relieved. We were all relieved. But they signed for the minimum amount possible. ... Brazil isn’t in a better vaccination position now because of the incompetence or inactivity of the federal government.”
In February, Brazil began signing contracts with other pharmaceutical companies, but none of their shots have been administered. Of the 10% of people who received one dose so far, the vast majority received Butantan’s shot and the rest got the AstraZeneca shot, which government health institute Fiocruz is bottling.
Both Brazilian labs face supply problems. Butantan said Wednesday it was suspending production while it awaits shipments of the active ingredient from China. Fiocruz has produced only 4 million of the 50 million doses it agreed to deliver by the end of April.
That threatens to reduce the speed of vaccinations, which finally hit 1 million doses per day last week, according to a consortium of local media that compiles data from state health secretariats.
Intensive care units for COVID-19 patients in most Brazilian states are above 90% capacity. Seven of every 10 hospitals in the country risk running out of supplemental oxygen and anesthetic in the next few days, the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported April 8.
At the municipal hospital of Sao Joao de Meriti, a city in Rio de Janeiro’s metropolitan area, the ICU ward is almost full, with many patients sharing space and oxygen bottles while being treated. Hospital director Altair Soares Neto said health professionals scarcely find time to sleep.
“Will we have the medicines, the oxygen, the conditions to care for this patient accordingly? Today we do. But, if cases keep growing, sometime we will fight chaos,” he said.
The surge of deaths has brought widespread outcry. Brazil’s Association of Collective Health, which has nearly 20,000 members including doctors, nurses and health experts, published an open letter this week demanding a three-week national lockdown, echoing increasingly urgent calls from others.
Bolsonaro has refused proposed lockdowns, arguing their economic impact would be even more devastating than the virus. He even took three states to the Supreme Court last month for adopting such restrictions.
“If we just wait for the vaccine to reach all risk groups, many people will die,” said the health association’s president, Gulnar Azevedo e Silva. “There is no national coordination. And if we don’t have that, what happens? Chaos.”
An agreement for FioCruz to acquire AstraZeneca’s technology would allow Brazil to produce an entirely locally made vaccine and make the nation less vulnerable to constraints on imported active ingredients. Fiocruz forecasts deliveries will start in September. But that date could be pushed back due to the complexity of the process and strict quality control, its press office said in an emailed response to questions.
While visiting Fiocruz on Friday, health minister Marcelo Queiroga told reporters there are other countries that are also experiencing problems with their supply of active ingredients, and that vaccines won’t remedy Brazil’s high level of COVID-19 deaths in the short-term. He said the government doesn’t have a “magic wand to fix all the problems.”
Carla Domingues, former coordinator of Brazil’s national immunization program, praised the country for approaching 1 million doses per day but said it had the infrastructure for a stronger campaign if only the government had secured the vaccines.
“Of course, we would like to vaccinate more, like in the U.S., but we can’t,” she said. “We’re going to have to live with this virus for a long time.” ___ Associated Press photographer Felipe Dana contributed to this report.
Nature of peacekeeping has changed: FM
Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Sunday said the nature of peacekeeping has changed due to the use of advanced technology and sophisticated weapons, the misuse of social media and the ongoing global epidemic.
He made the remarks at the “Army Chiefs' Conclave” at multipurpose complex of Dhaka Cantonment.
Bangladesh Army organised the seminar with the participation of local and foreign military and civilian dignitaries.
Also read: Bangladesh tops in UN Peacekeeping Mission
Foreign Minister Momen said meaningful mutual cooperation, increased participation of women and development of health-related emergencies were essential to address the challenges posed by this unprecedented global epidemic in establishing world peace.
The main topic of discussion at the seminar was ‘Future Trend of Global Conflict: The Role of UN Peacekeepers’.
Khaleda tests positive for Covid with no symptom: BNP
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Sunday said their party chairperson Khaleda Zia’s condition is completely stable with no symptom of Covid-19 though she has tested positive for the virus.
“Our leader Khaleda Zia has undergone coronavirus test. Her samples were taken to icddr,b yesterday (Saturday). We came to know her report is positive for the virus,” said BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Also read: Khaleda's proper treatment getting harder: BNP
In a press conference at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office, he said she is now receiving treatment under her personal physicians, led by respiratory medicine expert Prof Dr FM Siddiqui.
“She’s stable and fine. She has no visible Covid symptom, including high temperature,” the BNP leader said.
He said her personal physicians will take steps for her further treatment, if necessary.
Fakhrul said Khaleda urged the country’s people to pray for her speedy recovery. “Especially, I urge our party’s leaders and activists at every level to seek divine blessings for our leader’s quick recovery."
Also read: Lockdown unproductive due to mismanagement: BNP
He also urged the party leaders and activists to arrange doa mahfil for her in local mosques maintaining health safety rules.
“Her health condition is completely stable and her treatment has already begun. We would like to assure people she’s fine and receiving treatment under her personal physicians who are famous in the country,” Fakhrul added.
Asked whether Khaleda’s domestic help, Fatema, and others who stay in her Gulshan residence underwent the Covid test, he said he has no idea about it. “I only got information about our leader.”
Earlier in the day, Health Ministry’s senior information officer Maidul Islam Prodhan said the BNP chief underwent Covid test on Saturday evening and the results came out to be positive.
A source close to Khaleda’s one of the relatives who met her last week later tested positive for the Coronavirus. “That’s why Madam’s (Khaleda’s) family took initiatives for her Covid test, though she has no major symptom.”
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government freed Khaleda Zia from jail for six months through an executive order suspending her sentences on March 25 last year.
She was released from the prison cell of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) the same day, and she has been staying at her Gulshan house since then.
Also read: Coronavirus situation alarming, says BNP
On August 27 last year, the government extended her release for six more months and it was extended again for six months on March 15 last.
On February 8, 2018, Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. The High Court later doubled her jail term.
Khaleda was found guilty in another corruption case the same year. Her party claims both the cases are politically motivated.
Covid-19: Bangladesh records highest single-day deaths
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.
Khaleda Zia infected with Covid-19
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has been infected with coronavirus, says the Ministry of Health.
Talking to UNB, senior information officer of the ministry Maidul Islam Prodhan said the BNP chief underwent Covid test on Saturday evening and the results came out to be positive.
He said her samples were collected for Covid-19 test by icddr,b.
BNP leaders, however, said they do not have any such information.
Also read: Khaleda’s conditional release extended by six months
A source close to Khaleda’s one of the relatives who met her last week later tested positive for the Coronavirus. “That’s why Madam’s (Khaleda’s) family took initiatives for her Covid test, though she has no major symptoms.”
Also read: Khaleda’s sentences could be suspended for another six months: Law Ministry
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government freed Khaleda Zia from jail for six months through an executive order suspending her sentences on March 25 last year.
She was released from the prison cell of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) the same day, and she has been staying at her Gulshan house since then.
On August 27 last year, the government extended her release for six more months and it was extended again for six months on March 15 last.
Also read: Are some Covid-19 vaccines more effective than others?
On February 8, 2018, Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. The High Court later doubled her jail term.
Khaleda was found guilty in another corruption case the same year. Her party claims both the cases are politically motivated.
Global Covid-19 cases exceed 135 million with 2.9 million fatalities
Over 135 million people have been infected with Covid-19 globally with the reports of 2.9 million deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
The total case count reached 135,200,019 as of Sunday while the death toll mounted to 2,926,949.
The US has logged 31,49,565 cases and the death toll from the virus climbed to 561,780 as of Sunday morning.
Brazil's COVID-19 death toll has risen to 351,334 after 2,616 new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health reported on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the country registered 71,832 new cases, bringing the national tally to 13,445,006, the ministry said.
India has registered 13,205,926 cases and over 168,436 people have died so far from the virus in the country.
Also read: Are some Covid-19 vaccines more effective than others?
Vaccine shortage hits poor countries
As many as 60 countries, including some of the world’s poorest, might be stalled at the first shots of their coronavirus vaccinations because nearly all deliveries through the global programme intended to help them are blocked until as late as June, reports AP.
COVAX – the global initiative to provide vaccines to countries lacking the clout to negotiate for scarce supplies on their own – has in the past week shipped more than 25,000 doses to low-income countries only twice on any given day. Deliveries have all but halted since Monday.
During the past two weeks, according to data compiled daily by UNICEF, fewer than two million COVAX doses in total were cleared for shipment to 92 countries in the developing world — the same amount injected in Britain alone.
On Friday, the head of the World Health Organization slammed the “shocking imbalance” in global COVID-19 vaccination.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said while one in four people in rich countries had received a vaccine, only one in 500 people in poorer countries had gotten a dose.
Also read: Covid-19: Bangladesh sees highest daily death toll of 74
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh recorded 77 more deaths during the last 24 hours till Saturday morning, the highest one-day total since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country.
The number of new Coronavirus cases dropped slightly to 5,343 after registering over 7,000 cases for the fifth day in the last six days until Friday, said a handout issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
With the new 77 deaths, the Covid-19 fatalities rose to 9,661 while the mortality rate remained static at 1.42 percent for two consecutive days.
Meanwhile, the government enforced a 7-day lockdown from April 5 to bring the situation under control keeping garment factories and offices open on condition of maintaining health protocols. Later, it allowed public transports movement in city corporation areas and reopened shops and shopping malls within a few days.
Bangladesh reported its first cases on March 8 last year and confirmed the first death from the virus 10 days later.
Vaccination drive
The vaccination campaign, launched on February 7 with doses received from the Serum Institute of India, continues across the country with experts calling for intensifying it further.
On Thursday, Bangladesh began its second phase of inoculating people against the coronavirus disease amid uncertainty around vaccine availability.
Fresh lockdown set to go
As the spread of Coronavirus has sparked alarm across the country, the government is set to issue a notification on Sunday over enforcing a fresh nationwide lockdown from April 14 in its desperate bid to stop the spread of the deadly virus.
A fresh lockdown is coming with tougher measures as the virus keeps spreading fast in the country, State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain said while talking to UNB about the lockdown notification.
Eminent Rabindra Sangeet singer Mita Haque passes away
Ekushey Padak winning Rabindra Sangeet singer Mita Haque passed away at a hospital in Dhaka on Sunday (April 11, 2021), after losing her battle with Covid-19. She was 59.
The singer breathed her last at 6:20 am.
According to her family sources, Haque tested positive for Covid-19 on March 25 and was admitted to Bangladesh Specialized Hospital on March 31.
Also read: Noted singer Jane Alam passes away
However, she tested negative a few days later and returned home from the hospital. On Saturday night, her blood pressure fell down and she was rushed to the hospital again where doctors informed that she had suffered a heart attack.
She was then kept on ventilation before eventually losing her battle with illness.
Haque was also suffering from kidney disease and used to undergo dialysis on a regular basis.
Her body will be taken to Chhayanaut at 11 am where her colleagues, students and admirers will pay last respect to the Rabindra Sangeet legend.
Also Read: Singer Andrew Kishore passes away
She will be buried at the family graveyard at her ancestral home in Manohariya of Keraniganj, according to her family sources.
Born into a musical family on September 6, 1962, the noted artiste received her musical training from maestros including her paternal uncle and late musicologist Waheedul Haq, current Chhayanaut president Sanjida Khatun and musician Ustad Mohammad Hossain Khan, to name a few.
She had been a regular performer in the Bangladesh Television and radio since 1977.
Read Sylhet-3 MP Mahmud Samad laid to rest
Besides her esteemed singing career, Mita Haque was the founder director and teacher of her music school Shurotirtha. She served as the head of the Department of Rabindra Sangeet at Chhayanaut, Dhaka and also as the former general secretary and incumbent vice-president of the Rabindra Sangeet Shommelon Parishad.
For her remarkable contribution in the music industry, she was conferred with Ekushey Padak in 2020 and the Rabindra Puraskar from Bangla Academy in 2017.
Mita Haque was married to renowned actor Khaled Khan who died in 2013.
Read Journalist Afzal Mohammad dies of COVID-19