Dhaka, Jan 2 :Bangladesh’s COVID-19 positivity rate, or the percentage of people who test positive for the virus, increased to 2.91 percent on Sunday, the highest in nearly three months, according to the country’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

The country reported 557 new COVID-19 cases and one death on Sunday, taking the total tally to 15,86,466 and the death toll to 28,077.

Altogether 253 people recovered from the COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the total number of recoveries to 15,49,557, the DGHS data showed.

Bangladesh reported its first three cases of COVID-19 on March 8, 2020. The first death was reported in the country 10 days later.

The daily positivity rate reached a high of 2.97 percent on Oct. 7 last year. While the country has witnessed infection rates below or around 2 percent for the past few weeks, infections have soared again since last week.

Zahid Maleque, minister for Health and Family Welfare, warned last week that vaccines alone would not contain the surge of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in the region and beyond.

“We have to follow the proper hygiene protocol,” he said a day after Bangladesh started administering COVID-19 vaccine booster shots amid the rapid transmission of the new variant.

Bangladesh began the COVID-19 vaccination drive in January last year.(UNI)