DHAKA, – Bangladesh today reported 42 more fatalities from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the highest in a daily count, raising the death toll from the pandemic to 888.

“The tally of infections has also climbed to 65,769 after 2743 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the last 24 hours,” DGHS Additional Director General Prof Nasima Sultana told a virtual media briefing at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in the city.

She said the recovery count rose to 13,903 after another 578 patients were released from hospitals in the same period.

Among the total infections, 21.20 percent patients have recovered while 1.34 percent died so far since the first COVID-19 positive cases were reported in the country on March 8, Nasima said.

She also informed that a total of 13,136 samples were tested at 52 authorised labs across the country during that time.

Bangladesh confirmed the first coronavirus death on March 18, ten days after the detection of the first COVID-19 cases.

The health official laid emphasis on maintaining three heath directives — wearing mask, physical distancing and washing hands by soap — to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Referring to latest health directive of the World Health Organization(WHO), she said the people must wear masks to protect themselves from infections of coronavirus and mentioned that scientifically cloth-made mask is equally effective to prevent the virus.

“We can reuse cloth-made masks after washing by detergents or soaps,” Nasima said.

The health official said nearly 75 percent COVID-19 patients are taking treatment from their homes, and many of them are being cured every day after receiving treatment through hotlines.

Among the 42 deaths, 35 are male and seven female, she said adding, one is in their 20s, seven are in their 30s, nine in their 40s, seven in their 50s, 14 in their 60s, three in their 70s and one in his 90s .

According to the division-wise data, 27 deaths took place in Dhaka division and eight in Chattogram division while rests are in other divisions.

The health official dubbed Dhaka, Narayanganj and Chattogram COVID-19 as “hotspots” because the maximum numbers of cases were detected in the three cities.

As of June 5, Dhaka city has been considered as the worst-affected with 19,863 COVID cases, according to Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).

Among the COVID-19-prone districts, Chattogram, and Narayanganj, are the most hardest- hit ones with 2,875 and 2,541 cases respectively, according to the IEDCR data.

It was followed by Dhaka with 1,431, Cumilla with 1189, Gazipur with 1163, Munshiganj with 980, Cox’s Bazar with 969, Noakhali with 838 cases, Sylhet with 676, Mymensingh with 540 cases and Rangpur with 488 cases.

Nasima said a total of 3, 97, 987 samples have so far been tested since the detection of the first COVID-19 cases in the country.

According to the DGHS, a total of 3,0,1197 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine and 2, 44,501 people were released from quarantine, while the number of people who are now in quarantine is 55,696.

It said a total of 629 institutions have been prepared across the country for keeping over 31,991 people in quarantine, adding nearly 7,399 people have now been kept in isolation.

The government has collected 25, 09,142 PPE so far, of which over 22, 37,275 were distributed and 2,92,666 are in stock.

The DGHS sources said till today, nearly 99,57,100 people received healthcare services from hotline mobile numbers and health web portals as the government formed a group of medical professionals to provide emergency health services.

To receive information and treatment facilities on COVID-19, the contact hotline and mobile numbers are 16263; 333; 10655 and 01944333222.

As of June 7, 2020, 09:44 GMT, 402,564 have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are 6,999,124 currently confirmed cases in 212 countries and territories, according to Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.

China was the world’s first country which on January 11 reported the first death from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province.