Bangladesh has recorded 251 deaths from dengue this year, with the country logging 204 deaths by the vector-borne disease in July alone, media reports said. The overall tally of dengue infections this year in the country stood at 51,832 on Monday, the Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported, citing data from the Directorate General of Health Services.
July saw the highest number of dengue cases in a month at 43,854, with the death toll being 204. On Monday, the government reported hospitalisations of 2,694 new dengue patients, and the number of fatalities increased by four to 251 in the latest 24-hour count, according to the report.
Meanwhile, 2,731 new dengue cases were reported on Sunday, the highest in a day, according to news portal bdnews24.com. Last year, hospitals in Bangladesh reported 62,382 patients who took medical care for the disease, and the death toll stood at 281, the highest since the record-keeping began for dengue hospitalisations in the 1960s, the report said.
Bangladesh registered over 100,000 dengue hospitalisations in 2019, the record number of cases in a single year, while the official death toll stood at 179. A total of 9,386 dengue patients, including 5,011 in Dhaka, are receiving treatment at hospitals across the country, the report said, adding that 42,195 recoveries have been recorded so far.
An alarming surge of the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known carriers of the dengue virus, was recorded in a government-funded pre-monsoon survey of Dhaka, fuelling the worst spread of the disease over the past five years, it said.
