Omicron Cases Rise to 55 with 22 New in Country

Twenty two more cases of Omicron variant of the coronavirus have been detected in Bangladesh, taking the total tally to 55 till Sunday, according to GISAID, the global database for genomic data on the coronavirus, reports media.

These Omicron cases were detected at the virology laboratory of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, (icddr,b). icddr,b shared the report with GISAID on Sunday.

Earlier, three new Omicron cases were detected in the country on January 10, reports UNB.

On December 11, Bangladesh reported its first two cases of the Omicron variant in two members of the Bangladesh women cricket team.

They had returned from Zimbabwe after taking part in the ICC Women's World Cup qualifiers. The event was, however, called off midway due to the surge of Omicron.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh logged eight more Covid-linked deaths with 5,222 more infections in 24 hours till Sunday morning.

With the fresh cases reported after testing 29,642 samples, the daily positivity rate increased to 17.82 per cent from Saturday's 14.35 per cent during the period, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The fresh numbers took the country's total fatalities to 28,144 while the caseload mounted to 1,617,711 on Sunday.