Health Minister Zahid Maleque today said the Covid-19 virus will "leave the country on its own".
"Whether the vaccine comes or not, coronavirus will leave the country," the health minister said at a National Mourning Day event at the Bangladesh College of Physicians and Surgeons in the capital.
"We are happy that the death rate and the Covid-19 infection rate have gone down in the country," the minister said, adding, "People are getting treatment at home; they do not need to come to hospitals. As a result, there are fewer patients in hospitals."
Experts, however, say transmission is on the rise.
Recently, a study revealed that nine percent of Dhaka city dwellers have already been infected with coronavirus and 78 percent of them had no symptoms.
The study, jointly done by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), indicates that many undetected carriers have been spreading the deadly virus.
"The study proves the number of infected people is more than what we thought. The transmission is going on extensively in an unknown and uncontrolled way," Prof Ridwanur Rahman, an infectious disease specialist, told The Daily Star recently.
