Bangladesh saw further rise in coronavirus cases as the health authorities confirmed the detection of  1617 more new cases in the span of 24 hours on Wednesday, raising the number of total cases to 26,738. .

Besides, 16 patients died during the same period , raising the coronavirus death toll in the country to 386.

Prof Dr Nasima Sultana, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, came up with the disclosure at the  regular online briefing.

In the last 24 hours, 43 coronavirus testing laboratories across the country tested 10,207 samples, she added.

Bangladesh has been recording an increasing number of cases over the past few weeks. The first cases were announced on March 8 and the health authorities confirmed the first death on March 18.

The global death toll from coronavirus climbed to 324,910 as of Wednesday morning.

According to Worldometer data, the confirmed coronavirus cases in various countries of the world are now 4,986,332.

With the confirmed cases and casualties, the number of recovered patients is also rising as it was 1,958,496 on Wednesday morning, which is 86 percent of the total cases, the worldometer data revealed.

Coronavirus, first reported in China in December last year, is highly infectious and spread to over 213 countries and territories around the world and two international conveyances.