Dhaka, May 5 -- He noted the leap in the number of new patients at a news conference after a meeting of the technical committee to battle the epidemic on Tuesday.

"The number of cases is increasing slightly. We had seen there were 400-500 new cases daily for 8-10 days. But it has now crossed 600, and today the number was over 700," he said.

"It's natural that infections will rise along with the increased movement of people if we reopen the malls, garment factories and shops," he added.

The health minister defended the decision to reopen the economy. Saving lives and livelihoods must be done together, he said.

"But the health ministry will try to contain the outbreak. Our duty is to arrange proper treatment of the patients in proper pl...