Online Desk: A total of 15 dengue patients died and 2,158 were admitted to different hospitals in the country during the last 24 hours till 8 am today. On September 20, Bangladesh witnessed 21 dengue deaths, the highest in a single day this year and it also saw the same highest figure on September 2. “The death toll from dengue infection crossed the 1000-mark as the authorities recorded 1,079 dengue deaths between January 1 and October 7 this year,” a press release from the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said. “During the period, 585 dengue patients were hospitalised in Dhaka city while 1,573 were admitted to different hospitals outside the capital city,” the DGHS daily statement added. “This year, 1,079 deaths, the highest in a year since dengue was detected in 2000, were reported from dengue disease while 281 died last year,” the statement said.

With the new cases, the total number of patients rose to 2,20,822, the statement said, adding: “This year, some 2,10572 patients were released from different hospitals out of the total patients.” “A total of 9,171 dengue patients are undergoing treatment at different hospitals. Of them, 2,912 are in Dhaka while 6,259 are outside of the capital city,” it added. The authorities have recorded the highest number of dengue positive cases outside the capital in August this year, meaning the mosquito-borne disease gripped the entire country. August witnessed 71,976 dengue positive cases, the highest cases in a single month since dengue outbreak began in 2000 in the country while 342 dengue-related deaths were reported in the current month, the DGHS statement said.

According to the health experts, the vector-borne disease hit Dhaka city in 2000 subsequently the dengue positive cases were detected in Dhaka city only. But the dengue disease is changing its nature and it is gradually spreading across the country, they said, adding: “All 64 districts of the country have witnessed positive dengue cases.” The authorities recorded 79, 598 dengue positive cases in September while 396 deaths from the mosquito-borne disease during the same period.

The prevalence of dengue cases in Bangladesh has increased 10 times since last year and the deaths have increased almost thrice, according to a health expert. “Dengue positive cases have increased 10 times and death three times between mid-September, 2022 and mid-September, 2023,” Professor Dr. Md Golam Sharower, head of Department of Entomology, National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), told a seminar recently. The morphological, biological and behavioral changes that have occurred in Aedes mosquitoes as a result of all our unknown activities in mosquito breeding are highly favorable for Aedes mosquitoes to transmit dengue virus, he elaborated.

According to the DGHS, Bangladesh reported 1,01,354 dengue cases, the second highest since dengue cases were detected in 2000, in 2019, 1,405 cases in 2020, 28,429 cases in 2021 and 62,382 cases in 2022. It also added that Bangladesh recorded 179 dengue related deaths in 2019, seven deaths in 2020, 105 deaths in 2021 and 281 deaths, the second highest deaths, in 2022.