New waves, new variants, old inequity: a continuing COVID-19 crisis

### Summary box Bangladesh, a country of 166 million people, continues to be severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first three cases of COVID-19 in Bangladesh were detected on 8 March 2020 among a group of travellers. Since then, the country has experienced two waves—in June 2020 and April 2021. In July 2021, less than 3 months after the second wave, Bangladesh is currently fighting its third and by far the deadliest wave. Like most other countries in South Asia, Bangladesh continues to experience waves of infections caused by different variants of concern, precipitated by the massive inequity …