Indian Covid Variant: 3 more cases detected

Three more cases of the Indian Covid-19 variant have been detected at the Genome Centre of Jashore University of Science and Technology.

All three are India returnees and have been kept in institutional quarantine in Jashore, Dr Md Iqbal Kabir, assistant director of the centre, told this newspaper yesterday.

Of them, two are male and the other is female.

"Following genome sequencing, the three cases were found to be of Indian variant known as B.1.617," he mentioned.

Meanwhile, 30 people died from Covid-19 in 24 hours till 8:00am yesterday, taking the death toll to 12,211, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

Of the 30, 16 were women and 14 men. Sixteen of them were above 60 while the rest were aged between 31 and 60, the DGHS said in its daily bulletin.

The overall death rate stood at 1.56 percent till yesterday, it mentioned.

At least 1,272 new infections were recorded, raising the total number to 782,129. The positivity rate was 7.55 percent with 16,855 samples tested across the country in 24 hours. The overall positivity rate now stands at 13.64 percent.

Besides, 1,115 Covid patients recovered during the period, taking the total number to 724,209.