Officially confirmed coronavirus cases in Bangladesh soared to 2,63,503 on Tuesday with the detection of 2,996 new cases in the last 24 hours until morning.

The health authorities also reported 33 deaths, taking the local tally to 3,471.

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

Labs across the country have tested 12,27,988 samples so far -- 14,820 of them in the last 24 hours.

During this period, 1,535 patients recovered, pushing up the recovery number to 1,51,972.

Global coronavirus situaiton

Global COVID-19 cases have surpassed 20 million, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The global case count reached 20,011,186, with a total of 734,664 deaths worldwide, the CSSE data showed on Tuesday morning.

The United States, the worst-hit country by the pandemic, has recorded 5,089,416 cases and 163,425 fatalities, accounting for a quarter of the global caseload.

Brazil is the second hardest-hit country with 3,057,470 cases and 101,752 deaths.

Meanwhile, India has confirmed more than 2.2 million cases.

Coronavirus was first reported in China’s Wuhan province in December last year and later it spread across the globe rapidly.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.