pandemic
Covid-19 in Bangladesh: 7 more deaths reported in 24 hrs
Bangladesh logged seven Covid-linked deaths with 509 fresh infections in 24 hours till Thursday morning.
With the detection of the fresh cases after testing 22, 668 samples, the daily-case positivity rate slightly declined to 2.25 per cent from Wednesday’s 2.37 per cent during the period, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read:New COVID-19 cases in US soar to highest levels on record
The fresh numbers reported on Thursday took the country’s total fatalities to 28,070 while the caseload mounted to 15,85,027.
Meanwhile, the mortality rate remained static at 1.77 per cent during the period.
Besides, the recovery rate remained static at 97.72 per cent with the recovery of 395 more patients during the 24-hour period.
Bangladesh reported daily covid cases above 500 after two months. On October 13, the country logged 518 new Covid cases with 17 deaths.
Meanwhile, three more Covid cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in Bangladesh, raising the total tally to seven, according to GISAID, a global initiative on sharing all influenza data, shared the results on Wednesday.
On December 9, Bangladesh again logged zero Covid-related death after nearly three weeks as the pandemic was apparently showing signs of easing.
Read: Bangladesh to administer 4 crore covid doses every month from January: Minister
The country reported this year’s first zero Covid-related death in a single day on November 20 along with 178 infections since the pandemic broke out in Bangladesh in March 2020.
Bangladesh reported the highest number of daily fatalities of 264 on August 5 this year, while the highest daily caseload was 16,230 on July 28 this year.
Over 1 crore urban people migrated to village due to pandemic: Prof Barkat
More than one crore people have migrated from urban to rural areas in the country for loss of work and income during the peak of Covid-19 pandemic and 50 per cent of them would not return, said economist Dr Abul Barkat on Wednesday.
He said the number of new types of poverty has increased and marginal, lower middle income groups have been struggling with this type of poverty while the income of the upper-middle-income group has risen despite the pandemic situation.
READ: Ensure electricity for all remote villagers: Hasina
He was addressing a press conference on the 21st Biennial Conference-2021 of Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA) at BEA office in Eskato Garden.
Prof Barkat, also president of BEA, said the BEA survey and research found that more than one crore people migrated from urban to village areas losing their survival capital of business or jobs, of which 50 per cent would not go back to the big cities again.
He said there are 6.82 crore workforce in the country of whom 85 per cent are working in informal sector or self-employed and they were hardest-hit by adverse impact of Covid-19 pandemic.
He suggested Tk 2 to Tk 3 lakh are given per head to the self-employed people for starting their work or owning small business again to make the economy vibrant.
Criticizing stimulus loan disbursement to the large industries, Prof Barkat said they are capable of surviving while mostly affected small sectors were deprived from stimulus for overlapping documents.
Many big companies have misused the stimulus loan and the small sector entrepreneurs are still rushing at banks for loans to survive. Such behaviour has widened discrimination in the society, he said.
He warned that different forms anarchy will emerge in the country due to widening discrimination and poverty.
The BEA conference is scheduled to be held on December 24-25 at the Institution of Engineers Bangladesh with the theme “Impact of COVID-19 and human Development.’
Noted economist Prof Rehman Sobhan, member of 1st planning commission, will inaugurate the conference as the chief guest.
READ: President Hamid on a tour of his village and home district Kishoreganj
‘Mujib Gold Medal’ will be awarded in the conference to Prof Abul Barkat for his extraordinary contribution to economic science.
General Secretary of BEA Dr. Jamal uddin Ahmed and AZM Saleh, joint convener of the conference committee also spoke in the press conference.
Covid-19 pandemic swells number of hungry by more than 50 mn in Asia-Pacific: FAO-UNICEF Report
The state of food security and nutrition in Asia and the Pacific has worsened, as more than 375 million people in the Asia-Pacific region faced hunger in 2020, an increase of 54 million over the previous year, according to a joint report just published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday in Bangkok.
While hunger has increased, so too has inadequate access to nutritious foods, the report said.
According to the 2021 Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition, in this region alone, more than one billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 – an increase of almost 150 million people in just one year.
The high cost of a healthy diet, and persistently high levels of poverty and income inequality, continue to hold healthy diets out of reach for 1.8 billion people in the Asia and Pacific region.
Read: Children in the Pandemic: Consortium predicts 168,000 to die hungry during crisis
In recent years, progress has stalled in reducing the number of undernourished, and the prevalence of certain nutritional indicators, such as stunting in children under five years of age, was already much too high, as reported last year.
Since then, the situation has worsened. While it is not yet possible to fully quantify the damage done to food security and nutrition by COVID-19, the pandemic has had a serious impact on the region. Even countries that initially reported a limited number of COVID-19 cases experienced the negative effects of the containment measures, combined with people’s health concerns, that led to a major contraction of economic activity in this region and worldwide. Disruption in food supply chains only added to the problems.
The situation could have been worse without the response of governments and the impressive social protection measures they put in place during the crisis. In building back better food environments, future agri-food systems will have to provide better production, better nutrition, a better environment and better lives.
Read: Millions of hungry Americans turn to food banks for 1st time
To do that, FAO and UNICEF state the focus must revolve around meeting the needs of small-scale, family farmers and indigenous people in the region. Food systems must also prioritize the dietary needs of vulnerable groups, including young children and women.
Commitments have been made to ensure recovery and there are opportunities to begin the hard work of advancing food security and nutrition through transforming agri-food systems such as the United Nations Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit and the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). Implementing these commitments will be needed to meet the second Sustainable Development Goal, SDG2, to eradicate food insecurity and malnutrition.
Global Covid cases nears 271 million
The overall number of global Covid cases is fast approaching 271 million amid the spread of the Omicron variant in several western countries.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 270,126,616 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,311,561 Tuesday morning.
The US has recorded 50,118,307 cases so far and more than 798,697 people have died from the virus in the country, the university data shows.
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 22,191,949 cases as of Tuesday, while its Covid death toll rose to 616,980.
Also read: UK reports its first Omicron death
India has registered 7,350 new cases of Covid-19 during a 24 hours period, bringing the total caseload to 34,703,508, as per the health ministry figures released Monday.
The ministry also reported 202 more deaths during the same period, taking the total death toll to 475,640.
Three new cases of Omicron were reported in India on Monday -- two in Maharashtra (one each in Latur and Pune) and one in Gujarat’s Surat – taking the total tally of the new Covid variant in the country to 41.
Meanwhile, the UK reported the first death of a patient infected with Omicron on Monday. Long lines formed Monday at vaccination centres across England as people heeded the government’s call for all adults to get booster shots to protect themselves against the variant.
The UK, as of Tuesday morning, logged 10,935,244 Covid-19 cases, while the fatalities mounted to 146,935.
Situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported three more Covid-linked deaths with 385 fresh cases in 24 hours till Monday morning amid the fear of Omicron variant escalation.
On Sunday, the country logged 329 cases and six Covid-related deaths.
With the latest figures, the daily case positivity rate rose again to 1.72 percent from Sunday’s 1.52 percent, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.
The total fatalities mounted to 28,031 while the caseload mounted to 15,79, 710 with the fresh cases.
Meanwhile, the mortality rate remained static at 1.77 percent during the period.
Of the 27 deaths recorded from December 6 to December 12, 18.5 percent received Covid jabs while 81.5 percent did not, the directorate said.
Two of the latest deceased were men and one was a woman. The fresh cases, on the other hand, were detected after testing 21,037 samples, according to the directorate.
Besides, the recovery rate remained unchanged at 97.77 percent with the recovery of 267 more patients during the 24-hour period.
Also read: Bangladesh reports steady rise in Covid cases
On December 9, Bangladesh again logged zero Covid-related death after nearly three weeks as the pandemic was apparently showing signs of easing.
The country reported this year’s first zero Covid-related death in a single day on November 20 along with 178 infections since the pandemic broke out in Bangladesh in March 2020.
Bangladesh reported the highest number of daily fatalities of 264 on August 5 this year, while the highest daily caseload was 16,230 on July 28 this year.
However, some of the leading public health experts in Bangladesh have warned that the current trend of plummeting Covid-19 cases in Bangladesh could well be the obvious calm before a cataclysmic storm.
Their fears center around children below 12 who remain out of the vaccine coverage and the elderly people.
These experts fear a slow pace of vaccination, waning vaccine immunity, sheer disregard for Covid-safety protocols, reopening of schools and increased travel may set the stage for another Covid wave in Bangladesh -- a trend many European countries are witnessing now.
Pandemic mystery: Scientists focus on COVID’s animal origins
Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the virus tormenting the world remains shrouded in mystery.
Most scientists believe it emerged in the wild and jumped from bats to humans, either directly or through another animal. Others theorize it escaped from a Chinese lab.
Now, with the global COVID-19 death toll surpassing 5.2 million on the second anniversary of the earliest human cases, a growing chorus of scientists is trying to keep the focus on what they regard as the more plausible “zoonotic,” or animal-to-human, theory, in the hope that what’s learned will help humankind fend off new viruses and variants.
“The lab-leak scenario gets a lot of attention, you know, on places like Twitter,” but “there’s no evidence that this virus was in a lab,” said University of Utah scientist Stephen Goldstein, who with 20 others wrote an article in the journal Cell in August laying out evidence for animal origin.
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who contributed to the article, said he always thought zoonotic transmission was more likely than a lab leak but had signed a letter with other scientists last spring saying both theories were viable. Since then, he said, his own and others’ research has made him even more confident about the animal hypothesis, which is “just way more supported by the data.”
Last month, Worobey published a COVID-19 timeline linking the first known human case to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were sold.
“The lab leak idea is almost certainly a huge distraction that’s taking focus away from what actually happened,” he said.
Others aren’t so sure. Over the summer, a review ordered by President Joe Biden showed that four U.S. intelligence agencies believed with low confidence that the virus was initially transmitted from an animal to a human, and one agency believed with moderate confidence that the first infection was linked to a lab.
Some supporters of the lab-leak hypothesis have theorized that researchers were accidentally exposed because of inadequate safety practices while working with samples from the wild, or perhaps after creating the virus in the laboratory. U.S. intelligence officials have rejected suspicions China developed the virus as a bioweapon.
The continuing search for answers has inflamed tensions between the U.S. and China, which has accused the U.S. of making it the scapegoat for the disaster. Some experts fear the pandemic’s origins may never be known.
FROM BATS TO PEOPLE
Scientists said in the Cell paper that SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is the ninth documented coronavirus to infect humans. All previous ones originated in animals.
That includes the virus that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic, which also has been associated with markets selling live animals in China.
Many researchers believe wild animals were intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2, meaning they were infected with a bat coronavirus that then evolved. Scientists have been looking for the exact bat coronavirus involved, and in September identified three viruses in bats in Laos more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses.
Worobey suspects raccoon dogs were the intermediate host. The fox-like mammals are susceptible to coronaviruses and were being sold live at the Huanan market, he said.
“The gold-standard piece of evidence for an animal origin” would be an infected animal from there, Goldstein said. “But as far as we know, the market was cleared out.”
Also read: How can I protect myself from the new omicron variant?
Earlier this year, a joint report by the World Health Organization and China called the transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal the most likely scenario and a lab leak “extremely unlikely.”
But that report also sowed doubt by pegging the first known COVID-19 case as an accountant who had no connection to the Huanan market and first showed symptoms on Dec. 8, 2019. Worobey said proponents of the lab-leak theory point to that case in claiming the virus escaped from a Wuhan Institute of Virology facility near where the man lived.
According to Worobey’s research, however, the man said in an interview that his Dec. 8 illness was actually a dental problem, and his COVID-19 symptoms began on Dec. 16, a date confirmed in hospital records.
Worobey’s analysis identifies an earlier case: a vendor in the Huanan market who came down with COVID-19 on Dec. 11.
Also read: Omicron v. delta: Battle of coronavirus mutants is critical
ANIMAL THREATS
Experts worry the same sort of animal-to-human transmission of viruses could spark new pandemics — and worsen this one.
Since COVID-19 emerged, many types of animals have gotten infected, including pet cats, dogs and ferrets; zoo animals such as big cats, otters and non-human primates; farm-raised mink; and white-tailed deer.
Most got the virus from people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says that humans can spread it to animals during close contact but that the risk of animals transmitting it to people is low.
Another fear, however, is that animals could unleash new viral variants. Some wonder if the omicron variant began this way.
“Around the world, we might have animals potentially incubating these variants even if we get (COVID-19) under control in humans,” said David O’Connor, a virology expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re probably not going to do a big giraffe immunization program any time soon.”
Worobey said he has been looking for genetic fingerprints that might indicate whether omicron was created when the virus jumped from humans to an animal, mutated, and then leaped back to people.
Experts say preventing zoonotic disease will require not only cracking down on illegal wildlife sales but making progress on big global problems that increase risky human-animal contact, such as habitat destruction and climate change.
Failing to fully investigate the animal origin of the virus, scientists said in the Cell paper, “would leave the world vulnerable to future pandemics arising from the same human activities that have repeatedly put us on a collision course with novel viruses.”
‘TOXIC’ POLITICS
But further investigation is stymied by superpower politics. Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University said there has been a “bare-knuckles fight” between China and the United States.
“The politics around the origins investigation has literally poisoned the well of global cooperation,” said Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “The politics have literally been toxic.”
An AP investigation last year found that the Chinese government was strictly controlling all research into COVID-19′s origins and promoting fringe theories that the virus could have come from outside the country.
“This is a country that’s by instinct very closed, and it was never going to allow unfettered access by foreigners into its territory,” Gostin said.
Still, Gostin said there’s one positive development that has come out of the investigation.
WHO has formed an advisory group to look into the pandemic’s origins. And Gostin said that while he doubts the panel will solve the mystery, “they will have a group of highly qualified scientists ready to be deployed in an instant in the next pandemic.”
Scientist behind UK vaccine says next pandemic may be worse
One of the scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is warning that the next pandemic may be more contagious and more lethal unless more money is devoted to research and preparations to fight emerging viral threats.
In excerpts released before a speech Monday, Professor Sarah Gilbert says the scientific advances made in fighting deadly viruses “must not be lost” because of the cost of fighting the current pandemic.
“This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods,’’ Gilbert is expected to say. “The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.”
Gilbert is scheduled to make the remarks Monday night when she delivers this year’s Richard Dimbleby lecture, named after the late broadcaster who was the BBC’s first war correspondent and a pioneer of television news in Britain. The annual televised lecture features addresses by influential figures in business, science and government.
Also read: Covid: WHO warns pandemic will drag on into 2022
Gilbert is set to call on governments to redouble their commitment to scientific research and pandemic preparedness, even after the threat of COVID-19 wanes.
“We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness,’’ she said. “The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost.”
Also read: Omicron brings COVID-19 vaccine inequity 'home to roost'
Women entrepreneurs ‘struggling to survive’ in aftermath of pandemic
Speakers at a webinar on Thursday called for focusing support to SMEs, particularly women entrepreneurs, as they are struggling to survive.
Women-led enterprises in Bangladesh have long faced policy hurdles in accessing finance from formal channels. Financial institutions are also reluctant to provide loans to women entrepreneurs, including under government announced stimulus packages, they said.
Just 5.6 percent of recipients of the government- announced Tk 200 billion stimulus package for the small- to medium-sized enterprises (SME) are women, and they are mostly urban-based, they added.
Amid all the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs, the topic of gender inclusion has gained momentum among the investor circle.
Read: BGMEA seeks Russian support for RMG exports
Apart from providing capital to women entrepreneurs, it is also essential to acknowledge that additional support to build women networks and create opportunities for women to rise to leadership positions through organizational policies are also essential tools to promote women’s economic participation.
The SME sector contributes 20-25 percent to Bangladesh’s GDP. If female entrepreneurs get necessary support, then the sector’s contribution to GDP would increase, they observed.
Addressing in the webinar titled ‘Gender inclusion through investing’, they insisted on improving women’s access to finance and to adopt a gender-lens approach throughout the investment lifecycle, including the origination and selection process.
A panel of investors, entrepreneurs, lawyers and intermediaries joined the discussion to share their unique experiences and perspectives for the audiences to better understand how impact can be amplified to improve gender inclusion through investments.
Sylvana Q. Sinha, Founder, Chair, & CEO at Praava Health; Anita Ghazi Rahman, Founder and Managing Partner at The Legal Circle; and Bijon Islam, Co-Founder and CEO at LightCastle Partners; discussed about the potential of gender inclusion through impact investing in Bangladesh. Nirjhor Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh Angels, shared the latest update from the Bangladesh Women Angels Network chapter, which is going to be launched soon.
Read: Investment proposals grow 46.33 pc in July-September 2021: BIDA
The session was moderated by Maxime Cheng, Lead Market and Capacity Building Program at Roots of Impact.
B-Briddhi is a multi-year partnership between the Embassy of Switzerland in Bangladesh, Roots of Impact, LightCastle Partners, and other stakeholders including investors, private sector organisations, incubators, and support organisations for impact enterprises.
High inflation? Low polling? White House blames the pandemic
Worried scientists in South Africa are scrambling to combat the lightning spread across the country of the new and highly transmissible omicron COVID-19 variant as the world grapples with its emergence.
In the space of two weeks, the omicron variant has sent South Africa from a period of low transmission to rapid growth of new confirmed cases. The country’s numbers are still relatively low, with 2,828 new confirmed cases recorded Friday, but omicron’s speed in infecting young South Africans has alarmed health professionals.
“We’re seeing a marked change in the demographic profile of patients with COVID-19,” Rudo Mathivha, head of the intensive care unit at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital, told an online press briefing.
“Young people, in their 20s to just over their late 30s, are coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care. About 65% are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” said Mathivha. “I’m worried that as the numbers go up, the public health care facilities will become overwhelmed.”
READ: Biden picks women of color to lead White House budget office
She said urgent preparations are needed to enable public hospitals to cope with a potential large influx of patients needing intensive care.
“We know we have a new variant,” said Mathivha. “The worst case scenario is that it hits us like delta ... we need to have critical care beds ready.”
What looked like a cluster infection among some university students in Pretoria ballooned into hundreds of new cases and then thousands, first in the capital city and then to nearby Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city.
Studying the surge, scientists identified the new variant that diagnostic tests indicate is likely responsible for as many as 90% of the new cases, according to South Africa’s health officials. Early studies show that it has a reproduction rate of 2 — meaning that every person infected by it is likely to spread it to two other people.
The new variant has a high number of mutations that appear to make it more transmissible and help it evade immune responses. The World Health Organization looked at the data on Friday and named the variant omicron, under its system of using Greek letters, calling it a highly transmissible variant of concern.
“It’s a huge concern. We all are terribly concerned about this virus,” Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute, told The Associated Press.
“This variant is mostly in Gauteng province, the Johannesburg area of South Africa. But we’ve got clues from diagnostic tests ... that suggest that this variant is already all over South Africa,” said Hanekom, who is also co-chair of the South African COVID Variant Research Consortium.
“The scientific reaction from within South Africa is that we need to learn as much as soon as possible. We know precious little,” he said. “For example, we do not know how virulent this virus is, which means how bad is this disease that it causes?”
A key factor is vaccination. The new variant appears to be spreading most quickly among those who are unvaccinated. Currently, only about 40% of adult South Africans are vaccinated, and the number is much lower among those in the 20 to 40-year-old age group.
South Africa has nearly 20 million doses of vaccines — made by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson — but the numbers of people getting vaccines is about 120,000 per day, far below the government’s target of 300,000 per day.
READ: White House press secretary Psaki says she has COVID-19
As scientists try to learn more about omicron, the people of South Africa can take measures to protect themselves against it, said Hanekom.
“This is a unique opportunity. There’s still time for people who did not get vaccinated to go and get the vaccine, and that will provide some protection, we believe, against this infection, especially protection against severe infection, severe disease and death,” he said. “So I would call on people to vaccinate if they can.”
ADB approves $150 million loan to Bangladesh to help recovery of Covid-hit enterprises
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday approved a $150 million loan to Bangladesh to provide financing for cottage, micro, and small-sized enterprises (CMSEs) operated by youth.
The fund will be used for assistance to returning migrant workers, and rural entrepreneurs, particularly women, who have been hit hard by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, according to a press release.
The loan to Bangladesh Bank will be on-lent to participating financial institutions (PFIs), which in turn will help 30,000 CMSEs operated by the beneficiaries, said the release.
Read: ADB, multilateral banks commit to mainstreaming nature at COP26
The project aims to facilitate employment creation and help these vulnerable groups recover from the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Youth unemployment remains at a high level in the country, and they are more severely affected as they concentrate in sectors such as retail trade, accommodation, and food services, which were worst hit by the pandemic.
As per the press release, about 400,000 overseas migrant workers have returned since the start of the pandemic, and many remain unemployed.
Rural incomes have stayed depressed and nonfarm employment opportunities remain limited. Rural enterprises were severely affected, putting further pressure on rural employment.
“ADB supports the Bangladesh government’s long-term strategy to tackle the country’s employment challenges, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic,” ADB Principal Financial Sector Specialist for South Asia Dongdong Zhang said.
He said that promoting access to finance will help address a critical challenge of helping vulnerable groups in the immediate term and developing CMSEs in the long term.
Given the limited access of women to finance and their high concentration in retail, travel, and hospitality sectors, they have borne brunt of the impact of the pandemic.
Read: ADB raises climate financing target to $100 bln by 2030
The project has targeted to disburse 20 per cent of the funds to microbusiness led by women to support their recovery.
ADB will provide an additional $900,000 technical assistance grant from its Technical Assistance Special Fund for Bangladesh Bank and PFIs to help them strengthen their risk management capacities, business process, and information systems.
The assistance will also boost their support of CMSEs by incorporating mobile finance, value chain financing, and sustainable financing tackling climate change.
This project builds on the $250 million policy-based Strengthening Social Resilience Program, approved by ADB in June 2021, to strengthen Bangladesh’s social protection programs and resilience of vulnerable groups.
It also complements the $50 million additional financing to the ongoing Microenterprise Development Project, approved in December 2020, to help restore economic activities of microenterprises affected by COVID-19 in the country.
SUST support to help students shun stress
The pandemic and the consequent curbs on social interactions have had a marked effect on the mental health of teens and youths worldwide.
With educational institutions -- schools, colleges and universities -- reopening in a staggered way across Bangladesh, some students are returning to physical classes, having experienced some level of stress and anxiety -- symptoms of depression.
Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Sylhet is one of the few academic institutions in Bangladesh to have taken an innovative and positive stride in supporting the students' transition back to classrooms from remote learning.
Read Protecting Your Child’s Mental Health: 10 Tips for Parents
The varsity is offering a mental health service for its students through the 'SUST Moner Kotha' Facebook page, an online platform under the supervision of Director of Student Welfare Prof Zahir Uddin Ahmed and psychologist Fazilatunnesa Shapla.
The mental health service is available on demand for students across departments -- not to mention that confidentiality is the key to wooing the young minds.
What prompted the initiative
The unwanted deaths of Torabi Binte Haque and Asiya Akhtar, both students of SUST's Bangla department, Touhidul Alam Pratyay of Physics department, and Sabbir Ahmed of Chemistry department, during Covid have shaken the entire student community.
Read Mental Health: Types of Mental Illness and supporting someone with a mental health problem
Not to mention the suicides of Alamgir Kabir, a chemistry student of the university, and Md Mahfuzur Rahman, an assistant professor with the mechanical engineering department, during the pandemic.
Farzana Akhter, a second-year student of Bangla department, said, "We have sadly lost some people from SUST in the past one-and-a-half years. Five of them ended their own lives, including a teacher."
"But in order to stay mentally and physically healthy in times of crisis, student advisors and teachers, including a psychologist, have been holding various sessions and discussion programmes online. We hope to benefit from the initiative," she added.
Prabal Barua, a fourth-year economics student, said, “After a long hiatus, we have started physically attending classes. If we think about the mental state during this pandemic, it can be touted as miserable."
Also read: SUST offers free data to students
The initiative
Md Samiul Islam, dean of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman University, said that besides academic studies, students should focus on outdoor sports. "Outdoor activities play an important role in shaping the mental health of students."
Echoing similar sentiments, Zaida Sharmin, the provost of a female dorm, said that the devastation of the pandemic has emerged as a huge challenge for all.
“We all have to work together patiently to deal with such stress. It is necessary to avail various initiatives of the counselling cell to cope with any mental health issue," she told UNB.
Also read: SUST entry test: Application process ends tonight
Fazilatunnesa, the university psychologist, said, that students should not shy away from availing the mental health service.
"Our doors are open for all students. We continue to provide mental healthcare counselling online and in person. We are also following up with the students taking counselling sessions," she said.
SUST Proctor Associate Prof Dr Alamgir Kabir said, "Our disciplinary committee is working on the overall safety of students. Many students who are currently returning to campus after this long closure have come to us with mental health issues. We are trying to help them."
Read World Mental Health Day: What effect does depression have on the performance of athletes?
Prof Zahir Uddin added, “We have launched this mental health service for students. We want every student to do well in their life -- be it in their academic career or mental wellness."
SUST Vice-Chancellor Prof Farid Uddin Ahmed said, "Our teachers are on the job. We have also instructed each and every department to ensure a sound mental health for all their students."