News Desk: Bangladesh on Wednesday reported 22 more fatalities from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in a daily count, raising the death toll from the pandemic to 544. “The caseload has also surged to 38,292 after 1541 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the last 24 hours,” DGHS Additional Director General Prof Nasima Sultana told a virtual media briefing at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in the city.

She said the recovery count rose to 7,925 after another 346 patients were released from hospitals in the same period.

The health official also informed that a total of 8,015 samples were tested at 48 authorised labs across the country during that time.

Bangladesh confirmed the first coronavirus death on March 18, ten days after the detection of the first COVID-19 cases.

Nasima said nearly 75 percent COVID-19 patients are taking treatment from their homes, and many of them are being cured every day after receiving treatment through hotlines.

She said among the 22 deaths, two are in their 20s, two are in their 30s, two in their 40s, seven in their 50s, seven in their 60s one in his 70s and one below 10. Of the fatalities, 20 are male and two female, the health official said.

Among the COVID-19 victims, five are in Dhaka city and rests are outside the capital city. According to the division-wise data, 10 deaths took place in Dhaka division, 10 in Chattogram division and two in Sylhet division.

The health official dubbed Dhaka, Narayanganj and Chattogram COVID-19 as “hotspots” beacuse the maximum number of cases were detected in the three cities.

She said a total of 2,66,456 samples have so far been tested since the detection of the first COVID-19 cases in the country.

According to the DGHS, a total of 2, 71, 104 people were kept at both home and institutional quarantine and 2,14,408 people were released from quarantine, while the number of people who are now in quarantine is 56,693.

It said a total of 629 institutions have been prepared across the country for keeping over 31,991 people in quarantine, adding nearly 4,994 people have now been kept in isolation.

The DGHS said the government has collected 2,454,737 PPE so far, of which over 20, 66,334 were distributed and 3,88, 803 are in stock.

It said till today, nearly 80,00,278 people received healthcare services from hotline mobile numbers and health web portals as the government formed a group of medical professionals to provide emergency health services.

To receive information and treatment facilities on COVID-19, the contact hotline and mobile numbers are 16263; 333; 10655 and 01944333222.

As of May 27, 2020, 10:27 GMT, 352,671 people have died so far from the COVID-19 outbreak and there are 5,704,173 currently confirmed cases in 212 countries and territories, according to Worldometer, a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics.

China was the world’s first country which on January 11 reported the first death from the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province.