Dhaka: Within 11 days of the first case of coronavirus being reported in the country, the number of infected people climbed to 20 on Friday with three fresh cases.
The Additional Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Professor Dr Nasima Sultana, revealed the three positive cases at a regular press briefing at the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) in Dhaka’s Mohakhali.
The new infected people are a woman aged 30 and two men aged 30 and 70 years.
Among them, the 70-year-old man is now in critical condition and admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), she said.
He was infected after coming in contact with a person who returned from abroad recently, she added.
The three are members of separate families, of them, one is an Italy returnee, she said.
Bangladesh reported the country’s first death from coronavirus on March 18.
She urged the overseas-returnees to stay in a separate rooms and refrain from going out of their homes.
On March 8, the IEDCR announced for the first time the detection of three Covid-19 patients in Bangladesh.
The first three Bangladeshis infected with coronavirus were recovered.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Thursday said the government will consider lockdown in some vulnerable areas of the country if the coronavirus situation turns worse in the upcoming days.
On the other hand, Bangladesh Army has been setting up two quarantine centres– one at the Haji Camp, Ashkona while another at Diabari of Uttara– to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the coronavirus or COVID-19 has reached 10,049 globally as of Friday.
It has so far infected 246,467 people around the world, according to worldometer.
Of them, 147,935 are currently being treated with 7,389 being in serious or critical condition.
So far, 98,532 cases had outcomes and of them, 88,483 (90 percent) recovered and 10 percent died.
COVID-19 is affecting 182 countries and territories around the world and one international conveyance (the Diamond Princess cruise ship harboured in Yokohama, Japan).
The World Health Organization on March 11 declared the coronavirus crisis a pandemic.
