Moudud Ahmmed Sujan

Hospitals in three divisions have seen a rise in the number of patients being admitted  with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, according to the health directorate.

With the health directorate reporting 2,458 new Covid cases yesterday, the highest in four months, experts warned that the pandemic situation, fuelled by community transmission of Omicron variant, may get worse fast.

Everything is under control -- still. But the ticking hospital bed occupancy rate from the turn of the year presages a storm ahead, not too dissimilar from the one witnessed about six months ago.

The government considers stepping up vaccine campaign, lowering the age limit for booster doses and preventing gathering of unvaccinated people at public places to contain the spike of Covid cases.

With new cases of Covid-19 rising steadily for four days, the country faces the bleak prospect of another wave of the coronavirus that might put the health care system under serious strain again, experts fear.

The major challenges for the healthcare sector of Bangladesh in 2021 was ensuring supply of Covid vaccines, inoculating a huge chunk of the population, and making sure the infected got beds, ICU beds, and adequate oxygen.

The government is yet to take any effective measures to prevent a possible surge in Covid-19 cases as per recommendations made by the National Technical Advisory Committee.

The government is preparing to introduce travel bans on South Africa and other countries where the Omicron variant of coronavirus has been found.

Antibiotic overuse in poultry farming in Bangladesh is breeding the rise of “superbugs” that cannot be managed with traditional treatments, say multiple studies -- raising the stakes for the government to rein in the use of the drug considered the crown jewel of modern medicine.

Almost all clinically important and widely used antibiotics have lost their effectiveness by more than 50 percent, found a recent study -- a development that can leave the population defenceless against pandemics.

Sixty one percent of Bangladesh’s population still do not have access to safely managed toilet facilities, UN Water data suggests.

Seventeen days have passed but the law enforcers and a government probe committee are still in the dark about the 17 missing files of the health ministry, leaving the investigation shrouded in mystery.

After the avian influenza virus, popularly known as bird flu, first broke out from Biman Poultry Complex in Dhaka’s Savar on March 15, 2007, over 16 lakh chickens, raised in commercial farms across the country, died during the following year.

Bangladesh needs to attain self-sufficiency in vaccine supply as soon as possible to combat Covid-19 and any future public health emergencies, Ramon Magsaysay Award winner scientist Dr Firdausi Qadri has said.

Bureaucratic foot-dragging appears to be what Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC) has done most of the time during the pandemic.

One in every four elderly people, aged 60 and above, are suffering from malnutrition, and over half of all elderly people are at risk of developing malnutrition, revealed a study.

At around 10:30am on September 22, a noisy crowd of people were seen standing in queues in front of the ticket counter of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD), eagerly awaiting an appointment with one of 12 physicians at its outdoor department.

A family has allegedly been under pressure for a compromise, after they complained that their 11-month-old baby had died due to “sheer negligence” by doctors and staffers of a private hospital.

The government is planning to inoculate children aged 12 and above against Covid-19.

A study has revealed that costly antibiotics are being prescribed injudiciously for treating Covid patients at hospitals, which could lessen effectiveness of the lifesaving drugs in killing bacteria.