Dhaka, Sept. 18 -- Bangladesh continued to log one of the world's worst case fatality rates during dengue outbreaks, apparently almost throughout the last two decades, underscoring the strain put on the country's already fragile healthcare system and the people, particularly the poor.

The case fatality rate represents the percentage of people dying out of the total infected population.

Often called the CFR, the rate stood at 0.4 per cent until September 13, with 147 deaths recorded against the total dengue cases of 37,206. The current CFR is one of the highest in the world.

Bangladesh has constantly produced very high CFR, which even exceeded 2 per cent in 2003 and was above 1.5 per cent in 2000, 2001, and 2010. Over the last five year...