Two Bangladeshi patients recover from coronavirus infection, no new cases detected: IEDCR

Two of the three Bangladeshis who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, have recovered from the infection, according to the government's Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research or IEDCR.

No new cases of the virus were detected in the country, IEDCR Director Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora confirmed.

Bangladesh reported its first confirmed cases of the infection in two men and a woman on Mar 8. Among the patients, two had recently returned from Italy while the other was a relative of one of the returnees.

Briefing the media on Wednesday, Flora said the patients were subjected to a second set of tests for the virus with two of them returning negative results.

"I can give you some good news. Yesterday we ran a second test on the three patients. The results for two of them came back negative. Patients can be discharged if they test negative for the virus twice."

"We've said before that they didn't have any health complications. They are healthy. We will release them soon as per the WHO protocol."

A total of eight suspected coronavirus patients are in 'isolation' at different hospitals in the country, she said.

The IEDCR received 3,145 calls related to the novel virus on its hotline in the last 24 hours, according to Flora.

During this time, 24 people came to the IEDCR for assistance with the organisation collecting the samples of 10 of them. The IEDCR has tested a total of 142 specimens so far but none of them returned a positive result.