Dhaka: Despite the continued surge in the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths and cases, Bangladesh Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday claimed that Bangladesh was better off than the US and some European countries.

He presented the number of total confirmed deaths and infections in Italy, Spain, and the US 45 days after the first case was detected there and said far fewer people died in Bangladesh from the disease and contracted the virus by the 45th day, which was yesterday.

The health minister at the government's daily briefing on the coronavirus outbreak picked the three countries that reported the highest number of deaths and infections to compare with Bangladesh.

The officials announced seven deaths and 414 new cases after testing 3,416 samples. This brought the death toll to 127 and confirmed cases to 4,186 in Bangladesh.

The minister said in the first 45-day period in Italy, some 11,000 people died and 1.30 lakh tested positive; in Spain, 10,000 died and 1 lakh tested positive; and in the US, 24,000 died and 1.20 lakh tested positive.

"If we compare, we can see that Bangladesh's situation is far better," said Zahid Maleque.

The minister did not mention the number of people the three countries tested in the first 45 days.

Italy detected the first two cases on Jan 31. In the following one-and-a-half month period, it tested 148,657 samples, according to www.ourworldindata.org.

Spain also detected the first case on Jan 31 and by the following 45 days, it conducted 930,230 tests, according to the health ministry website of the country.

According to www.statista.com, as of April 23, the US performed over 4 million tests for COVID-19, the highest in the world.

In Bangladesh, a total of 36,090 samples have been tested so far, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

Experts say the situations are not comparable especially when the number of tests is not considered.

Testing is one of the major parameters, they said, adding that many cases and even deaths in Bangladesh must remain unreported, thanks to the low number of tests.

They pointed to the fact that Italy and Spain reported their first cases at the beginning of the pandemic when scientists knew little about the virus.

"This [the minister's comparison] is completely illogical. Because, they [the US, Italy and Spain] have done hundreds of thousands of tests by this time [45 days] while we tested far fewer people," infectious diseases specialist Prof Ridwanur Rahman said.

"If we had done enough tests, we might have detected more patients than them since our population density is higher. What they [health department] are saying is unscientific," he told The Daily Star.

There are unreported deaths from COVID-19 across the country, especially in villages, he said.

According to media reports, over 200 people died in the country from what looked like coronavirus over the last one and a half months.

Prof Nazrul Islam, member of national technical advisory committee on COVID-19, said, "It is a political claim. There is no logic behind comparing our situation with that in Italy.

"We have to analyse the situation based on multiple parameters. With a few tests, we cannot measure the reality."

After repeated calls, the number of daily tests has now been increased to over 3,000, from the initial 50 to 60, he said.

"The majority of the samples are collected from Dhaka division and that's why the majority of the cases are from this region."

Asked how many people he thought were infected, he said, "It is not possible to estimate. There are many undetected cases for sure. We have the capacity to run more tests and we should have done that. But we had not."

Prof Nazrul Islam said the national technical advisory committee will meet soon to make a number of recommendations.

Prof Saif Ullah Munshi, chairman of virology at BSMMU, said, "It is better to compare situations among countries using projection models under the same parameters, including demography, disease trend and others."

"Since many doctors have been in quarantine and we are preparing new hospitals for treating COVID-19, we are taking steps to recruit 2,000 doctors and 6,000 nurses as per the directive of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina," Zahid Maleque told the video conference.

Over 300 Bangladeshis died abroad after contracting the virus, he said.

Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director at the Directorate General of Health Services, said from March 23 to April 23, the number of cases has risen from six to 4,186.

Among the patients reported dead yesterday, five were male, two female, she said, adding 16 others had recovered, taking the total recovered patients to 108.

https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/things-better-us-europe-1896262