Dengue death toll crosses 1600-mark

UNB :
Eight more deaths were reported from dengue in 24 hours till Monday morning, raising the fatalities from the mosquito-borne disease in Bangladesh to 1,606 this year.

During the period, 920 more patients were hospitalised with the viral fever, according to the DGHS.

A total of 3,493 dengue patients, including 1,011 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.

So far, the DGHS has recorded 3,09,087 dengue cases and 3,03,988 recoveries this year.

September has so far been the deadliest month for the dengue outbreak this year with 396 fatalities and 79,598 cases, according to DGHS data.

In Dhaka, hospitals admitted 219 patients in this period while the other districts recorded 701 new cases. The death toll outside the capital was four.

Of the 3,493 dengue patients undergoing treatment in hospitals across the country in the morning, 1,011 were in Dhaka and 2,482 outside the capital.

After a record 79,598 dengue cases and 396 deaths in September amid the worst outbreak of the disease, 67,769 cases and 359 deaths were reported in October. The number of cases in August was 71,976, with 342 deaths.

The death toll in the first 27 days of November was 258. As many as 37,912 new dengue cases have been recorded in this period.

Experts have blamed a prolonged monsoon and rising temperature, along with a lack of effective measures to kill the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the known carrier of the virus, for the outbreak.