Dhaka (AFP)
At least 40 people died in a dengue epidemic that is underway in Bangladesh, the worst ever in the country where hospitals are overcrowded, officials said Tuesday.
The virus, transmitted by mosquitoes and which can be deadly, rages in the usual way in the country during the season of the monsoon, between June and September. But this year the disease has reached the proportions of an epidemic.
More than 44,000 people have been hospitalized since January, including 2,100 on Monday alone, said Ayesha Akhter, a health ministry official.
"We have 40 deaths related to dengue confirmed until Monday," she told AFP. Local media say that the threshold of 100 dead was exceeded last week.
Thanks to the one-week holidays for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, hundreds of thousands of city-dwellers have returned to their families in the countryside, which gives rise to fears of an increased spread of the disease.
Unusually, holidays have been canceled for all employees of the public health sector to meet the needs, according to the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Abul Kalam Azad.
© 2019 AFP