Dhaka, June 24 : Bangladesh has registered 37 new deaths due to COVID-19, raising the body count to 1,582, health officials said on Wednesday. The case load surged to 122,660 after 3,462 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, till Wednesday morning. Another 2,031 patients have recovered from COVID-19 at home and in hospital in the same period, bringing the total to 49,666, DGHS Additional Director General Nasima Sultana said in a media briefing. The rate of recovery from COVID-19 currently stands at 40.49 percent, while the mortality rate is 1.29 per cent, bdnews24 reported. A total of 16,433 samples were tested at 66 labs across the country with 21.07 per cent returning positive results, according to government data. Globally, over 9.26 million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus and 477,643 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019. /IANS