The rate of COVID-19 infection per million people in Bangladesh is 1,532, which is higher than in India, Pakistan and other South Asian countries, except Maldives.

Bangladesh, as of 8:00am Friday tallied 2,52,502 COVID-19 cases, including 2,851 in the past 24 hours, and 3,333 deaths from the novel coronavirus, including 27 in the 24-hour period.

The number of cases in Bangladesh is far lower than in India and with little less than in Pakistan, but the rate of cases per million people in Bangladesh is higher compared to the highly populous countries in the Indian subcontinent.

In the regular bulletin, Directorate General of Health Services additional director general of health Nasima Sultana, citing the World Health Organisation data up to August 3, said that the rate of cases per million population in Bangladesh was 1,421.5.

COVID-19 statistics of the US-based independent reference website worldometers.info shows that the current rate of attack per million population is 1,532 in Bangladesh while it is 1,472 in India and 1,277 in Pakistan.

India’s total COVID-19 cases are nearly 17.5 lakh higher than Bangladesh’s while Pakistan’s cases are about 30,000 more than Bangladesh’s.

The rates of infection per million population in the regional countries are as follows:

8,643 in the Maldives, 1,119 in the Philippines, 948 in Afghanistan, 761 in Nepal, 525 in Hong Kong, 443 in Indonesia, 280 in Malaysia, 140 in Bhutan, 133 in Sri Lanka, 48 in Thailand, 15 in Cambodia and 8 in Vietnam.

Qatar topped the list with 40,025 cases per million.

The USA, which is by far the highest COVID-19-burdened country, has 15,205 cases per million while the rate in Brazil is 13,716 cases, 6,010 in Russia, 7,582 in Spain, 4,537 in the UK, 4,122 in Italy, 2,996 in France, 2,572 in Germany and 59 in China.

The rate of cases per million people in Dhaka division as a whole is 3,637, the highest among the divisions, but the rate in the capital is 14,824.2, which is far higher than any other area or district, said Nasima.

The second highest rate of case per million has been reported from Chattogram division, 1,040.7, Chattogram district 1,609.

Sylhet took the third place with the rate of 664.3 per million with Sylhet district having 1,028.5 per million.

Khulna division’s infection rate is 663.5 per million with 1,244.8 per million reported for Jhenaidah district.

Rajshahi division’s attack rate is 608.9 per million with 1,229.3 per million reported for Bogura district.

Barishal division is in the sixth place having 608.8 cases per million, Mymensingh division in the seventh place with 353.8 cases per million and Rangpur division at the bottom with 347.3 infections per million.

Nasima, in the bulletin, said that the rate of infection in Bangladesh is now 20.40 per cent while the death rate is 1.32 per cent.

On Friday, 4,267 COVID-19 patients were taking treatment at hospitals, including 308 in critical condition.

Besides, 18,651 suspected patients were in isolation and 52,609 were in quarantine.

So far 1,45,584 COVID-19 patients have recovered from their infection, including 1,760 in the past 24 hours.