Coronavirus outbreak
Bangladesh 34th most risky nation
STAFF REPORTER, Dhaka
A recent study of The University of Cambridge has found Bangladesh to be ranked 34th among countries with the highest risk of transmission of the deadly coronavirus.
The riskiest 43 countries include 22 Asian nations. Among those, India and Pakistan ranked 8th and 20th respectively with Sri Lanka being positioned 30th.
In that study, China tops the position with the highest risk of transmission. The four Chinese cities included in the study are Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
After China, the remaining highest risk-prone countries of coronavirus transmission are Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Canada and the USA. All these five countries reported at least one case of coronavirus positive.
The study published in
the medical journal Epidemiology and Infection includes 168 countries. They
have been ranked based on the risk index in four quantiles with the fourth quantile being the highest risk and the first quantile being the lowest risk. The Maldives and Afghanistan ranked 13th and 31st respectively, and both the countries are in the third quantile. Bhutan took the 25th position, and Nepal 26th with both countries being ranked in the second quantile.
The National Health Commission of China said that it had recorded 121 new deaths and 5,090 new coronavirus cases in the mainland on Thursday thereby taking the total number of infected to 63,851. Some 55,748 people are being treated while 1,380 people have died of the virus that emerged in December in Wuhan, the capital of the central province of Hubei.
There is no South American country in the fourth quantile, which means the overall risk of coronavirus transmission into that continent is the lowest. This quantile includes two African countries Ethiopia and South Africa and two Oceania countries Australia and New Zealand.
The study, however, did not consider the risk associated with travel by water and land, which might have an impact on the spread of coronavirus.
