COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have spread to Bangladesh in March 2020.

COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh
Disease	COVID-19
Virus strain	SARS-CoV-2
Location	Bangladesh
First outbreak	Wuhan, Hubei, China
Index case	Narayanganj & Madaripur (Hospitalized in Dhaka)[1]
Arrival date	8 March 2020
Confirmed cases	2,051,578[2]
Deaths	29,499[2]
Fatality rate	1.44%
Vaccinations	151,507,170[2] (total vaccinated) 142,201,680[2] (fully vaccinated) 361,742,560[2] (doses administered)
Government website
corona.gov.bd

Cases

The first three known cases were reported on 7 March 2020 by the country's epidemiology institute IEDCR.^[3] Infections remained low until the end of March but saw a large rise in April.^[4] In the week of 11 April, new cases in Bangladesh grew 1,155%, the highest in Asia, ahead of Indonesia with 186%.^[5]

As of 14 May 2020^[update], there were a total of 18,863 confirmed cases besides 3,361 recovered & 283 deaths in the country^[6] of which 14 people had died in the last 24 hours.

Criticisms

Experts criticised the lack of amount of tests performed in the country that has a population of over 160 million.^[7][8]

Newspaper reports and social media continued to report about additional deaths of patients with COVID-19 symptoms. Some of the deceased were treated at COVID-19 isolation centres at hospitals in the districts and others were denied treatment, though no tests were given to confirm contagion.^[9]

Response

On 22 March, Bangladesh declared a 10-day shut down effective from 26 March to 4 April.^[10] This was later increased to 5 May^[11][12]