Death toll from dengue infection in the country in 2023 nears 500 with eight more deaths from the viral disease and 2,168 more hospitalisation in the past 24 hours till Tuesday morning.

The new figures took to 493 the number of people died of dengue and 104,359 the number of dengue patients hospitalised across the country in the past seven months and 22 days of the year, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.

Of the new patients, 842 were admitted to hospitals in the capital and the rests were hospitalised in other districts as worsening dengue situation across the country continued.

On Tuesday, 7,829 dengue patients, including 3,570 in the capital, were compelled to receive treatment at hospitals across the country.

More than half of the hospitalised dengue patients, 52,527 were reported in the past 22 days of August. This is the second-highest number of hospitalisation in Bangladesh in a single month, just behind 52,636 dengue hospitalisation in August 2019.

The number of hospitalisation with dengue was 566 in January this year, 166 in February, 111 in March, 143 in April, 1,036 in May, 5,956 in June, and 43,854 in July, DGHS.

This August has also turned out to be the deadliest month for dengue, with 242 deaths reported in the first 22 days. The previous highest number of deaths in a single month was reported in July when 204 people died of the mosquito-borne viral disease.

The number of dengue death was 6 in January, 3 in February, 2 in April, 2 in May, and 34 in June, while no deaths were reported in March, according to DGHS data.

The dengue outbreak was first officially reported in the country in 2000, when 5,551 people were hospitalised and 93 died, according to DGHS data.

Dengue hospitalisation had been recorded at 28,429 and 62,382 respectively in 2021 and 2022, when dengue deaths were recorded at 105 and 281 respectively.