Bangladesh shows worrying rise in infections in South Asia 

Bangladesh now is at the peak of its pandemic surge with infections and deaths rising nationwide, while all other countries in South Asia, except for Pakistan, are experiencing a decline in new cases. 

Bangladesh has also delayed immunising its mass population. Just 2.6% of people have been fully vaccinated so far – which is the 4th lowest in South Asia, according to Our World in Data, which collects information from local governments.

The Maldives is the most immunised nation in South Asia, with 47.23% of its population fully vaccinated, followed by Sri Lanka (7.61%).

India, the region's deadliest country for Covid-19, has vaccinated 5.87% of its population fully, which is more than double that of Bangladesh.  

After India, Nepal comes fourth as it fully vaccinated 3.84% of its citizens.

Bhutan has the lowest share of the vaccination rate, which is only 0.2%, followed by Afghanistan (0.56%), Pakistan (2.01%) and Bangladesh (2.6%).

However, if the pace of vaccination that Bangladesh started at the beginning had continued, many more people could have been fully vaccinated.

Bangladesh's infection curve that flattened during January and February this year has taken a sharp upward turn since March. 

The statistics show a continuous rise in cases after Eid-ul-Fitr, which was observed on 13 May, and it is considered the third wave of the pandemic, which has already proved to be the deadliest wave in Bangladesh. 

July witnessed the most infections in the first 18 days with 190,731 cases, while with 3,391 lives lost to Covid-19 it has already broken the record of the monthly fatality count recorded in the deadliest April this year.

South Asia's infection trend 

The number of confirmed cases in Bangladesh was 1,765 on 1 June this year, with the rising trend of infections, it had reached the highest single-day spike of 13,768 cases on 12 July. Due to low testing, the cases dropped to 8,489 on 17 July but it again rose to 11,578 on 18 July. 

As a result, the country had experienced a fall in recovery rate from 92.5% on 1 June to 84.4% on 18 July.  

India, the epicentre of delta variant, reported 132,788 cases on 1 June this year, which came down sharply to 41,157 on 17 July.

Cases are also going down in Nepal from 5,825 on 3 June to 1,310 on 17 July.

Sri Lanka is also experiencing a decline in infections, as it posted 3,410 cases on 4 June, which dropped to 1,452 on 17 July.

Bhutan, the first country to win the fight against Covid-19, has reported only two deaths so far.

On the other hand, the number of new cases in the Maldives has reached below 100 on 17 July, which was 768 on 1 June.   

Meanwhile, Pakistan's case figures, despite slowly rising, have remained relatively low.

Afghanistan had experienced a rise in cases last month, with 2,313 highest single-day cases and 101 deaths recorded on 16 June. The number of new cases declined significantly to 887 on 17 July.