“Two more persons have tested positive with Covid-19 in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours, taking the number of the confirmed cases to 56,” Md Habibur Rahman, director(management information system) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), told a virtual media briefing at the IEDCR here today.
He said after confirmation of the Covid-19 cases in the country, the number of death toll has stood at 6, and 26 patients have recovered from the deadly disease.
Among the two cases, age of one is between 30 to 40 and another is between 70 to 80, Dr Habibur said, adding both the patients are male.
He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed all organizations concerned to collect and test at least two samples from each upazila every day.
“As per the premier’s instruction, we’ve collected 1000 samples, and the samples will be tested tomorrow,” he added.
Dr Habibur said the government has prepared 6,200 isolation beds in eight districts in the country.
“We’ve arranged two types of quarantine — one is home quarantine and another one is institutional quarantine. A total of 62,127 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine,” he said.
“Of them, 243 were kept at institutional quarantine,” he added.
A total of 45,427 people have so far been released from quarantine, Dr Habibur said, adding now 16,700 people have been kept at quarantine.
“As many as 323 institutions are being prepared for keeping 18,900 people in quarantine,” he said.
“We’ve tested 141 samples in the last 24 hours. The number of total people, who were kept isolation, was 373…now 78 people have been kept in isolation,” Dr Habibur said.
In order to contain spread of coronavirus in the country, he said 6,66,931 overseas returnees have been brought under screening, adding that the authorities concerned are continuing screening those coming from abroad.
Pointing out that the government has opened hotlines and health web portal for providing healthcare services to the people, the director (MSI) said 10,42,952 people have so far received healthcare services from hotline mobile numbers and health web portal.
He noted that the country has sufficient logistic equipment, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and kits.
“We’ve already distributed 3, 57,250 PPE at different hospitals of the country and we’ve enough stock of such essential protective gear,” Dr Habibur said.
Now, he said, the country has 92,000 test kits, of which 2,0000 have been distributed at different hospitals.
Dr Habibur said the government has formed a group of medical professionals comprising 12,448 physicians to provide medicare services to the people.
“They’re voluntarily providing treatment to the people through mobile phone … the number of such medical professionals is increasing every day” he added.
The IEDCR sources said the government is expanding testing laboratory facilities to divisional levels.
A total of 10 institutions including six in Dhaka are conducting samples tests in the country for ensuring quick confirmation of Covid-19 cases, they added.
As part of the precautionary measures, the IEDCR urged the people to follow “social distancing” alongside maintaining individual hygienic habits to halt the spread of the Covid-19.
It also advised the people to strictly follow the directives, particularly to ‘stay at home’, given by the government and others to stop the spread of the disease.
The IEDCR urged to call only the two numbers – 01944333222 and 10655 – which will connect to the other toll-free numbers.
It said the people can get their required Covid-19-related information through e-mail iedcrcovid-19@gmail.com and facebook account-Iedcr.
(BSS)
