The infections from the COVID-19 continued to soar as 706 more people got infected with the novel coronavirus in Bangladesh in the past 24 hours, ending 8:00am Thursday, raising the total number to 12,425.

Death toll to be disclosed later, said Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, Additional Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), in the daily online health bulletin, held at the Management Information System (MIS) on Thursday afternoon.

In the last 24 hours, several coronavirus testing laboratories across the country, tested 5,867 samples, she added.

Some 130 more coronavirus infected patients were released from various hospitals after making full recovery from the extremely infectious disease in the past 24 hours, she said, adding that a total of 1,910 have returned to their homes after full recovery from different hospitals.

Earlier on April 16, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) declared the entire country as ‘vulnerable zone’ to virus infection.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh government extended the general holidays until May 15 to contain the spread of highly infectious virus.

Bangladesh confirmed its first coronavirus cases on March 8 and the first death on March 18.

The global death toll from coronavirus reached 265,094 as of Thursday.