Bangladesh reports a record 2,844 dengue cases in a day with 12 deaths

The tally of infections since January stands at 75,069, as the death toll rises to 352

A dengue outbreak continues to pummel Bangladesh, with the hospitals registering 2,844 new cases and 12 deaths in the latest daily count.

The tally of infections since January has now climbed to 75,069, as the death toll rose to 352, according to data published by the Directorate General of Health Services on Wednesday.

As many as 1,762 new cases were detected outside Dhaka, but seven of the deaths occurred in the capital.

On Wednesday morning, 9,427 dengue patients were in hospital care around the country, and 5,006 of them were outside Dhaka.

The dengue outbreak has been worse in 2023 than in previous years.

Last year, hospitals reported 62,382 patients taking medical care, and the death toll stood at 281, the previous highest since record-keeping began for dengue hospitalisations in the 1960s.

In 2019, Bangladesh witnessed over 100,000 dengue hospitalisations, a record number of cases in a single year. The official death toll that year was recorded at 179.

A pre-monsoon government-funded survey of Dhaka city has uncovered an alarming surge of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, known carriers of the dengue virus, fuelling the worst spread of the disease over the past five years.

Most of the deaths caused by dengue occurred due to haemorrhagic fever and shock syndrome, which health experts associated with some new variants of the deadly virus, previously undetected in Bangladesh.