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3 years ago

Dengue cases cross 44,000 this year

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The government has reported hospitalisations of 1,503 dengue patients in the latest daily count, taking the overall tally of infections this year to 44,205.

The death toll from the mosquito-borne disease rose by four to 229 in the 24 hours to Friday morning, according to data released by the Directorate General of Health Services.

On Wednesday, the country reported a record 2,653 new hospitalisations over dengue, reports bdnews24.com.

Most of the cases this year, 36,227, have been reported in July, with three more days of the month left. 

As many as 907 of the new cases have been detected in Dhaka. Two of the new deaths from dengue also occurred in the capital. 

On Friday morning, 8,676 dengue patients were under hospital care around the country, and 4,870 of them were in Dhaka.

The dengue outbreak has been worse in 2023 than in previous years.

In June, 5,956 people were hospitalised with the disease and 34 people died. There were 566 cases in January, 166 in February, 111 in March, 143 in April and 1,036 in May.

Six people died in January, three in February, two in April and two in May.

Last year, hospitals up and down the country reported 62,382 patients taking medical care, and the death toll stood at 281, the highest since the record-keeping began for dengue hospitalisations in the 1960s.

Bangladesh witnessed over 100,000 dengue hospitalisation in 2019, which stands as the record number of cases in a single year. The official death toll that year was recorded as 179.

A pre-monsoon government-funded survey of Dhaka city has uncovered an alarming surge of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known carriers of the dengue virus, fuelling the worst spread of the disease over the past five years.

The survey found that 55 wards in the Dhaka city corporations were at high risk of dengue infections.

Most of the deaths by dengue occurred due to hemorrhagic fever and shock syndrome, which health experts associated with some new variants of the deadly virus, previously undetected in Bangladesh.

 

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