Dhaka: Coronavirus cases in the country have passed the 5,000 mark, with health officials reporting 418 new cases. The total number of detected cases now stands at 5,416 as the death toll reaches 145.

In the 24 hours till 2:30 pm yesterday, five more patients died of the disease, Prof Nasima Sultana, additional director general (admin) of the directorate general of health services (DGHS) said in a bulletin.

All the deceased were from Dhaka district -- four inside the city and the other from Dohar upazila.

Three of them were male and two female.

Three were aged between 51 and 60 while one over 60 and the other was a 10-year-old child who had kidney disease, Nasima said.

According to IEDCR website, Dhaka city has continued to be the worst affected area in the country.

As of yesterday, around 52 percent of all positive cases were from the capital while 32.82 percent are from the other upazilas in Dhaka and the districts belong to Dhaka division.

Narayanganj remained the second-worst affected district with 625 cases followed by Gazipur with 308.

Among the other divisions, Chattogram and Mymensingh shared around four percent positive cases each.

Meanwhile, nine more have recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number of recovery cases to 122, Prof Nasima added.

A total of 1,164 people were put under isolation so far in the country.

Of the 97,132 people so far put under isolation, 79,899 people are still in quarantine.

GOVT SAYS NO SHORTAGE OF TEST KITS

During this 24-hour, samples of 3,473 individuals were tested in 22 Covid-19 testing labs across the country.

A total of 46,589 samples were tested in the country since January 28 when the first test was conducted.

Prof Nasima also informed that Covid-19 testing has been expanded to three more laboratories, taking the total number of labs to 25.

The new labs have been set up at Abdur Rahim Medical College in Dinajpur, Kusthia Medical College and Chattogram Veterinary and Animal Science University.

Despite the number of laboratories has been increased in the last few days, the number of tests has not gone up correspondingly; it is still near around 3,000 every day -- which is far too low provided the level of transmission and size of the population.

Although the authorities are yet to lay bare the reason behind the inadequate number of tests, media reports indicate that shortage of testing kits might have been the cause.

Prof Nasima Sultana, however, dismissed the claim that they have any shortage of kits and other testing equipment.

"We are regularly importing test kits and we have enough supply of the kits," she said without mentioning the number of kits they currently have at their disposal.

It is to note that the DGHS stopped taking questions from the journalists during briefing two weeks ago.

Experts blamed many cases have been remaining undetected due to the small number of tests.

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