Dengue death toll rises to 152 with 4 more deaths

With four more deaths from dengue confirmed in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning, the official death toll from the disease rose to 152 in 2022 – the second-highest on record after the 179 deaths recorded in 2019, reports UNB.

Of all the patients who died in the last 24 hours, three were from Dhaka division, and another was from Chattogram. The latest numbers took Dhaka division and Chattogram’s death toll to 94 and 40, respectively.

During this time, 1,094 more patients, including 600 in Dhaka city, were hospitalised with the mosquito-borne disease, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

A total of 3,750 dengue patients, including 2,332 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.

DGHS has recorded 40,101 dengue cases and 36,199 recoveries so far this year.

Even before the country’s healthcare system has been able to fully recover from the blow of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is being hit hard by a recurrence of an outbreak of dengue, the disease that is endemic to Bangladesh.

Doctors and health experts say that measures taken by the city corporations and other authorities are not proving to be effective. The publicity and drives carried out by the authorities to destroy larvae of Aedes mosquito are proving to be inadequate.

Dengue outbreaks in Bangladesh exceeded all previous records in 2019, mostly in the capital city of Dhaka. A total of 101,354 dengue cases with 179 dengue-related deaths were officially recorded.