The country reported 2,709 more fresh cases with 24.80 percent infection rate and 34 more new deaths in the last 24 hours.

Bangladesh is the 17th country in the world to hit the 2 lakh-mark in corona cases.

The country still remains the 17th worst corona affected country in the world in terms of the number of cases.

Germany is in the 16 position with 202,345 cases, having just 279 more cases than Bangladesh.

The country’s journey to 2 lakh cases took 133 days while the jump from 1 lakh cases to 2 lakh cases have come in just 30 days.

The country hit the 1 lakh- mark in 103 days of reporting the first three coronavirus case on March 8.

The coronavirus count in Bangladesh reached 153,277 on July 2 while 48,789 cases were added in just 16 days.

It took 29 days for the coronavirus cases in Bangladesh to surpass 100-mark. The country’s coronavirus count reached 123 on April 6 with 35 fresh cases.

Also Read - Coronavirus: Total cases cross 2 lakh mark; Daily tests decline

It took 74 days for the virus cases in the country to cross the 1 lakh-mark from 100 while such infection cases increased from 100 to one lakh in India in 64 days.

Bangladesh’s total corona infection tally reached 102,292 on June 18 and the next 50,986 cases were added in just last 14 days.

In a regular press briefing on Saturday, Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said 2,709 new Covid-19 patients were identified during the past 24 hours, raising the confirmed cases in the country to 202,066.

She said they tested 10,17,674 samples in the country since the detection of the virus in the country while 10,923 in the last 24 hours.

She also informed that 1,373 people have recovered from coronavirus during the period, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1,10,098.

In comparison with the tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the infection rate is 24.80 percent while the infection rate is 19.86 percent against total tests carried out so far, she said.

Besides, the death toll from the deadly virus has reached 2,581 with the deaths of 34 more people during the period.

Of the new deceased, 29 are men and five are women. Among the total dead, 2,040 or 79.04 percent are men and 551 or 20.96 are women.

Nasima also said against the total number of detected cases, the recovery rate is 54.49 while the mortality rate is 1.28 percent.

On Friday, Bangladesh reported 51 deaths from coronavirus and 3,034 cases.

Health experts said the positive case rate is now higher in the country than in the past as the transmission is gradually growing for lack of effective preventive measures.

Prof Nazrul Islam, former Vice-Chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), said coronavirus transmission is still on the rise but the tests declined sharply over the last two weeks.

He voiced concern that the fall in the number of tests is only contributing to the spread of the virus since many infected people are remaining undetected, and they are freely moving everywhere.

The expert said there’s no alternative to increasing the number of tests and identifying the infected people to contain the virus transmission.

Prof Be-Nazir Ahmed, former director (disease control) of the DGHS, Bangladesh must scale up tracing, testing, isolation and quarantine across the country.

He said the government should enforce lockdown at least in 500 red zones and identify the infected people and isolate them from others to control the virus outbreak. “Without adequate tests and strict lockdown, we won’t be able to get rid of the virus in the near future.”