Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said that Bangladesh’s development forged ahead despite the Covid pandemic that affected the global economy and created food shortage even in many developed countries. “We’ve been able to continue the development trend of Bangladesh despite facing the corona,” she told a function arranged to distribute the Swadhinata Purashkar-2022 (Independence Award-2022) at Shapla Hall of the Prime Minister’s Office. The prime minister said that the people now get to know even the small problems of the country because of the media freedom guaranteed by her government. “We know that massive food shortage has been seen in many developed countries as well,” she said, adding that many people throughout the world went below the poverty margin too. She said these problems faced by many countries went unreported, while in Bangladesh the media could write about it. The PM said there were only one television and one radio station in the country in the past before she opened the electronic media to the private sector. She said the people can now know about even small problems here due to information technology and a large number of television and radio stations. But many other countries are there who never publish such problems, she added. Hasina said Bangladesh has gained economic self-sufficiency. “Now we can implement our development projects with 90 per cent finance from our own resources,” she added. She said her Awami League government has been working to reach the benefits of independence to the doorstep of every house in the country. “We achieved Independence. Our goal is to reach its benefits to every house upholding this Independence. And we’ve been working with this goal,” she said.    Read: PM distributes Independence Award to 9 people, 2 organisations

The global death toll from Covid-19 is fast approaching 6 million as Covid pandemic has entered its third year. According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 446,163,541 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,998,819 Monday morning. Despite vaccine availability, the United States is nearing 1 million reported deaths on its own, the biggest official death toll in the world, reports AP. The US has recorded 79,271,466 cases so far and 958,621 people have died from the virus in the country, the university data shows. Read: Covid-19: Dhaka div sees highest mortality rate India's COVID-19 tally rose to 42,962,953 on Sunday as 5,476 new cases were registered during the past 24 hours across the country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data. Besides, 158 deaths due to the pandemic since Saturday morning took the total death toll to 515,036. Meanwhile, Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January last year, registered 29,056,525 cases as of Monday, while its Covid death toll rose to 652,438. Global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95% of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated, compared to more than 73% in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data. Situation in Bangladesh Bangladesh reported eight more Covid-linked deaths with 529 fresh cases in 24 hours till Sunday morning. The daily positivity rate slightly increased to 2.63 per cent from Saturday’s 2.11 per cent after testing 20,062 samples during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). Read:France lifts Covid restrictions on Bangladesh The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 29,085 while the caseload to 19,47,266. Meanwhile, the mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.49 per cent. However, the recovery rate rose to 94.66 per cent with the recovery of 3,340 more patients during the 24-hour period.

After two years of fighting the Covid pandemic, the Narendra Modi government is betting big on artificial intelligence (AI) to help it keep track of disease outbreaks across India. A tool currently being developed by a private company along with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) will scan all media reports related to health, to create a database of outbreaks of 33 diseases — some with the potential to become epidemics — that are monitored under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), reports ThePrint. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the private company for developing two tools initially — one to track disease outbreaks, and another to develop an AI-based system to interpret X-ray reports based on an India-specific database. The starting database will be of 1,20,000 X-ray images, but more will be added as the tool progresses. Read: Ukraine seeks Indian intervention in ending Russian offensive “We plan to use artificial intelligence in a big way in public health. This is the first step towards that. We have told the company that they can do the project as part of their corporate social responsibility, but the intellectual property rights for whatever they develop will be with the government,” a senior health ministry official told ThePrint. “Currently, we scan the media for outbreak reports ,but that is done manually once a day and largely limited to English and Hindi media. But the AI tool will also scan vernacular media. The data will be shared with IDSP state units which can then send personnel on the ground for assessment. This will ensure that the response time is reduced,” the official explained. The IDSP comprises a Central Surveillance Unit (CSU), State Surveillance Units (SSU) in all state/UT headquarters and District Surveillance Units (DSU) in all districts in the country. The purpose of the IDSP is “to strengthen/maintain decentralised laboratory-based IT-enabled disease surveillance systems for epidemic-prone diseases to monitor disease trends, and to detect and respond to outbreaks in early rising phase through trained Rapid Response Team”. It tracks 33 diseases that are now being fed into the AI tool. A tool for closer scrutiny A rudimentary version of the media-scanning AI tool, a demonstration of which was seen by ThePrint, has data not just on Covid outbreaks across the country but also on road accidents, burn injuries and oral cancer, none of which have epidemic potential in the usual sense of the term. One of the officials of the company — which has started work in a room in Nirman Bhawan, where the health ministry is housed — explained that this is because, in the initial stage, the tool is collating all health-related news. Read: India to have 1 billion smartphone users by 2026: Deloitte “We have also fed some keywords that can be associated with these 33 diseases into the system. This is because an outbreak may present as something else initially and the disease may actually be identified at a later stage,” the health ministry official quoted above said. “For example, if you look at the IDSP alerts now, there is a report of a hooch tragedy. That is because this could be associated with viral hepatitis and not hooch, which is subject to investigation,” the official added. NCDC old-timers said when the IDSP was set up in 2004, one of the goals was real-time disease surveillance, but as the reach of the media has increased, reports from the ground have become an important part of surveillance. Covid showed the need for closer scrutiny than just manual scanning of some newspapers and channels, they pointed out. India-specific X-ray tool The private company is also working with doctors at AIIMS to develop another tool that will interpret X-ray reports. “Currently, all such tools that are available are based on databases from the US or UK. We wanted something that is specific to India,” the senior health ministry official said. The tool is being developed to initially look at 14 parameters in a chest X-ray, such as infiltration, emphysema, nodule, pneumonia and masses. At this stage, the diagnosis by the tool is being cross-checked by a radiologist and additional changes are being made in the tool to make it more accurate. “As the database becomes bigger, the tool will become more efficient, but the way we have designed it, it will always be used with human intervention,” the official said.

The transmission of the highly contagious Omicron variant of coronavirus may subside at the end of this month, experts said, hoping that it may leave behind an extremely high level of immunity. They also said the widespread Omicron infection may help Bangladesh and most countries in the world finally attain the much-talked-about herd immunity nearly two years into the Covid pandemic. Talking to UNB, leading public health experts Dr Bijon Kumar Sil, Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed and Dr MH Chowdhury Lenin said the immunity gained through the Omicron infections may work as a shield against future same type of variants of the coronavirus for some time. But they are not sure about how durable this immunity would be or how well it would work if a different type of Covid strain emerges in the days to come. Also read: 80% Covid patients in Bangladesh of Delta variant: BSMMU survey Blessing in disguise Noted microbiologist Dr Bijon Kumar Sil, head of microbiology department at Gono University, said the antibody produced by Omicron can neutralise Delta and all other previous strains of Covid-19. “But the antibody created by the Delta variant can’t neutralise Omicron. “So, the Omicron is producing a very strong antibody which may resist the future variants of the virus, except any unusual one.   He said not only Bangladesh but also almost all countries in the world are going to attain natural herd immunity because of massive exposure to the omicron variant. Dr Bijon said over 40 percent of people across the world had natural or artificial antibodies before the emergence of Omicron. “As Omicron has spread rapidly all over the world, hardly anyone will remain without a natural antibody with the ebbing of its wave. So, the new variant that may arrive in the future is unlikely to spread fast.” "Most people in our country have already got infected by Omicron and the rest will also contract it in the days to come. So, we’re reaching towards the natural herd immunity against the virus. We could not do it by vaccines as we can’t vaccinate underage children,” the expert said. He describes Omicron as a blessing in disguise as he thinks it may help get rid of the deadly coronavirus through the immunity the variant is leaving behind. Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, former director of Communicable Disease Control (CDC) at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said the virus that spreads fast also ends quickly. “This is happening in the case of Omicron. If any unusual thing doesn’t happen, the community transmission of Omicron will stop by this month. It means we’ll achieve herd immunity by this time.” Once herd immunity is attained, he said if a similar variant emerges in the future, it will not spread quickly. “But it’s difficult to say how long this antibody will work. It is also difficult to say no such variant will come that can dodge the antibody developed through the previous variants and the vaccines.” Also read: 75% of target population fully vaccinated : Health Minister A natural vaccine Bijon Kumar Sil said there is vaccine inequality all over the world. “Many countries still couldn’t provide their majority population with vaccines. But Omicron is going to remove this inequality naturally.” He said the antibody being developed among people through widespread infection is precious. “It’s a very strong immunity against any variant that may come in the future. It’ll work like vaccines and reduce the severity. It may not stop infection like the vaccines, but it’ll protect people by reducing the severity of illness.” The experts also said though Omicron is a relatively weaker strain, it induces a powerful natural "herd immunity" similar to what a vaccine does. He, however, said vaccination is still necessary to create a very strong resistance against Covid. “If people who have the natural antibodies are given vaccines, their immune system will be boosted to keep them protected from the virus for a longer period.” From pandemic to endemic Bijon Kumar Sil said the massive Omicron infections are signaling the beginning of Covid’s transition to become endemic. “Omicron can hasten the transition from pandemic to endemic. It could end up being a seasonal variant. It means Covid won’t go away completely in near future, but the virus will keep circulating in some parts of the world on a small scale,” he said. Dr Bijon said the Omicron wave will end across the world by September and Covid may be declared as endemic by some countries by next year if any unusual variant does not emerge that can dodge the existing antibodies. He said most people, including babies, are also getting infected with Omicron. “But those who will be born after one or two months won’t have antibodies as the virus transmission will slow down. If these babies are not vaccinated, they’ll be vulnerable to the virus.” Dr Be-Nazir said, “We can say if any different variant doesn’t emerge and the Omicron-induced antibodies work well, Covid will gradually weaken and become a seasonal virus.” He also said Covid will continue to transmit sporadically in different places of the world at a different time like Influenza. “So, we can say Omicron may be the beginning of the end of the Covid pandemic, but we still remain cautious about it.”  

Bangladesh logged 31 more Covid-related deaths, with 13,501 fresh cases in 24 hours till Monday morning. The daily positivity rate rose again to 29.77 from Sunday’s 28.33 per cent after testing 45,358 samples during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). On Sunday, Bangladesh saw its highest in the last four months 34 deaths with 12,183 fresh cases. The country last reported 31 covid-related deaths on September 28 last with 1,310 cases, taking the positivity rate to 4.49%. On Friday, Bangladesh logged its earlier highest daily positivity rate at 33.37% reporting 15,440 cases and 20 deaths. The fresh numbers took the country’s total fatalities to 28,394 while the caseload mounted to 1,798,833. Read: Global Covid cases top 374 million amid Omicron spread Of the 140 deaths recorded from January 24 to January 30, some 22.1 per cent received Covid vaccines while 77.9 percent did not, the DGHS mentioned. Comorbidities among the deceased patients declined 4.4 per cent this week compared to the previous one. Comorbidity means the simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient. Among the new deceased, 20 were men and 11 women. Sixteen deaths were reported in Dhaka division while five in Khulna, three each in Rangpur, Mymensingh, two in Chattogram, one each in Rajshahi, and Sylhet divisions. Meanwhile, the mortality rate further declined to 1.58 per cent. However, the recovery rate also declined to 87.18 per cent with the recovery of 2,568 more patients during the 24-hour period. Omicron Cases Bangladesh’s total tally of Omicron cases reached 69 with the detection of five more cases till January 23, according to GISAID, a global initiative on sharing all influenza data. On December 9 last year, Bangladesh again logged zero Covid-related death after nearly three weeks as the pandemic was apparently showing signs of easing. The country reported this year’s first zero Covid-related death in a single day on November 20 last year along with 178 infections since the pandemic broke out in Bangladesh in March 2020. Besides, the country registered the highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year, while the highest number of daily fatalities was 264 on August 10 last year.

The Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has been hit by the latest outbreak of the Covid pandemic, as "several players and staff" are down with the virus, according to the chief physician of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). For the last two days, some players took part in individual or unofficial practice sessions at the BCB Academy. None of them was part of the team bio-bubble as it's yet to come into effect. Read: BPL: Chattogram Challengers unveil their jersey “A few players and staff members have tested positive for Covid-19,” Debashis Chowdhury, the chief physician of BCB, told the media on Tuesday. “Most of the players are scheduled to give their specimen on Tuesday, and we will see how many return positive.” He, however, did not disclose the names of the players or teams down with Covid. The players who will return negative will join their respective team's bio-bubble, and those who test positive will need to maintain isolation, Debashis added.  This year’s BPL has been rebranded as the Bangabandhu BPL to celebrate the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.  The first match of the BPL will take place on January 21 at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium.  A total of six teams are taking part in this year’s BPL, which will be played in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet.  Read: BPL 2022: 3 days to go, but no official preparation by the teams as yet With only three days to go, no team started their official preparations. But they are expected to do so by Wednesday.  Many foreign recruits are already in Dhaka, and many are scheduled to reach the capital soon. Some members of the foreign coaching staff have already reached Dhaka and joined their respective teams too. 

There has been no decision yet over operating trains at half of their capacities, said Railways Minister Md Nurul Islam Sujon. “No decision has been taken yet over carrying 50% passengers in trains…we’ll let you know if there’s any decision,” he said. Read: Harsh restrictions back in Bangladesh as Covid situation worsens  The Railways Minister came up with the information while talking to reporters at a deal-signing ceremony at Railway Bhaban in the capital on Tuesday. On Monday, the government has imposed restrictions on public movement and other activities like operating public transport at their half capacities amid the growing concern over the new Omicron variant of Coronavirus.

The Covid pandemic will "go on for a year longer than it needs to" because poorer countries are not getting the vaccines they need, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Dr Bruce Aylward, senior leader at the WHO, said it meant the Covid crisis could "easily drag on deep into 2022", reports BBC. Less than 5% of Africa's population have been vaccinated, compared to 40% on most other continents. The UK has delivered more than 10 million vaccines to countries in need. Read:Mosquirix: WHO Recommends World's First Malaria Vaccine RTS,S It has pledged a total of 100 million. Dr Aylward appealed to wealthy countries to give up their places in the queue for vaccines in order that pharmaceutical companies can prioritise the lowest-income countries instead. He said wealthy countries needed to "stocktake" where they were with their donation commitments made at summits such as the G7 meeting in St Ives this summer. "I can tell you we're not on track" he said. "We really need to speed it up or you know what? This pandemic is going to go on for a year longer than it needs to." The People's Vaccine - an alliance of charities - has released new figures suggesting just one in seven of the doses promised by pharmaceutical companies and wealthy countries are actually reaching their destinations in poorer countries. The vast majority of Covid vaccines have been given in high-income or upper middle-income countries. Africa accounts for just 2.6% of doses administered globally. Read:World misses most 2020 mental health targets: WHO The group of charities, which includes Oxfam and UNAids, also criticised Canada and the UK for procuring vaccines for their own populations via Covax, the UN-backed global programme to distribute vaccines fairly. Official figures show that earlier this year the UK received 539,370 Pfizer doses while Canada took just under a million AstraZeneca doses. The original idea behind Covax was that all countries would be able to acquire vaccines from its pool, including wealthy ones. But most G7 countries decided to hold back once they started making their own one-to-one deals with pharmaceutical companies. Oxfam's Global Health Adviser, Rohit Malpani, acknowledged that Canada and the UK were technically entitled to get vaccines via this route having paid into the Covax mechanism, but he said it was still "morally indefensible" given that they had both obtained millions of doses through their own bilateral agreements. Read: WHO okays vaccination of those below 18 in Bangladesh: Health Minister "They should not have been acquiring these doses from Covax," he said. "It's nothing better than double-dipping and means that poorer countries which are already at the back of the queue, will end up waiting longer." The UK government pointed out it was one of the countries which had "kick-started" Covax last year with a donation of £548m. The Canadian government was keen to stress that it had now ceased to use Covax vaccines. The country's International Development Minister, Karina Gould, said: "As soon as it became clear that the supply we had secured through our bilateral deals would be sufficient for the Canadian population, we pivoted the doses which we had procured from Covax back to Covax, so they could be redistributed to developing countries." Covax originally aimed to deliver two billion doses of vaccines by the end of this year, but so far it has shipped 371m doses.

Leaders of different rights groups on Thursday demanded that Bangladesh makes increased investment on education of girls to prevent child marriage and keep retain the kids in schools. The call came at a virtual press conference held by The National Committee for the International Rural Women's Day Celebration on the eve of the International Rural Women's Day, which will be observed on Friday. The press briefing discussed the surge in child marriage especially during the COVID pandemic when the educational institutions remained closed for one year and half. Read: DC Eeti declares war on child marriage in Kurigram Lack of effective monitoring and measures by the local administration and law enforcement authorities, the return of migrant workers who are seen as perfect grooms, a drop in income, and the perception of girls as a burden, among other factors played a vital role in this regard, it was told in the press conference.  It was also told that dropout rates of girls have increased, which can be seen in the attendance numbers after schools finally reopened on September 12.  Tamanna Rahman, Abu Hanif, Belal Hossain, Lutfor Rahman Labu, Masuda Faruque Ratna, P M Billal, Rashida Begum, Tahrima Afroz, Sheikh Asad, Khondoker Faruk Ahmed, Ashraful Hasan Taimur members of the district committee spoke during the program presided by Shamima Akhter, the chairperson of the committee. Mustafa Kamal Akhand from equitybd and Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Executive Director of COAST Foundation also spoke at the event.  Read: Child marriage was an epidemic within the pandemic in Bangladesh In her keynote address Ferdous Ara Rumee mentioned that Bangladesh ranks fourth in the world in terms of child marriage. The country has more than 4 million child brides, according to the UNICEF.  Furthermore, it has risen at an alarming rate during the pandemic. Due to the continued closure of schools, insolvent rural families have found themselves in a precarious situation. Because the administration and law enforcement authorities are swamped by the pandemic, parents can easily marry off their daughters, she said.  Tamanna Rahman said that the dropout rate of girls has increased, and most of them fell victim to child marriage. Most of these marriages are not registered.  They will be deprived of any legal aid in the future because of this, she said. Masuda Faruk Ratna said that as administration and law enforcement agencies were busy dealing with the pandemic, they could not implement the initiatives taken against child marriage by the government.  Read: Child marriage rates soar in Cox's Bazar in the shadow of pandemic Rezaul Karim Chowdhury said that different studies showed that the rate of child marriage decreased when girls are engaged in higher secondary education and graduation level. “Therefore, we should focus on increasing expenditure regarding girls’ education,”he said. Lutfor Rahman Labu said that girls were facing various threats during the pandemic. Many guardians married off their daughters as they were concerned as to when schools would reopen, or how their families would be defaced if girls were to engage in romantic affairs. But this kind of thinking is faulty, he said.  On behalf of the organizers, Mustafa Kamal Akand mentioned that more than 60 districts in the country are celebrating International Rural Women’s Day. Every year, rallies, seminars, demonstrations, fairs, and award-giving ceremonies for rural women with contributions in different sectors are organized to celebrate the occasion.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has highly lauded  the development journey of  Bangladesh despite challenges posed by Covid pandemic. Vucic shared his deep appreciation while he received Foreign Minister  Dr AK Abdul Momen at the Palace of Serbia, Belgrade on the sidelines of the NAM meeting in Belgrade on Wednesday. Bangladesh Foreign Minister attended the high level commemorative meeting to mark the 60th anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement held on October 11-12 in Belgrade which was attended by over 40 Ministers and around 70 countries. Read: FM leaves Dhaka to join meetings in Romania, Serbia During the meeting, Dr Momen mentioned cordial and traditionally close relationship between Dhaka and Belgrade which is rooted in history. He specially touched on the  personal friendship between Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and President of former Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito. Serbian President was enthused to learn that Bangladesh is currently celebrating the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Golden Jubilee of Independence of Bangladesh.