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Introduction: Handwashing practice is an effective way to minimize severe infectious diseases such as COVID-19, diarrhea, and pneumonia. The study aimed to explore the prevalence of handwashing behavior and associated determinants in rural and urban areas of Bangladesh. Methods: The research was performed using cross-sectional survey data from the 2019 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, and 61,242 household members were the sample for this study. The Chi-square test was applied for the bivariate analysis. A generalized linear mixed-effects model was used to identify the risk factors of practicing handwashing in both urban and rural areas of Bangladesh. Results: Only 65% of the country's households had access to handwashing facilities (place, water, and materials). While urban dwellers were more likely to wash their hands, rural dwellers were only 63% likely to do so. The level of education of household heads, wealth status, division, number of family members, sanitation facilities, and water source were the key factors associated with handwashing behavior. This study revealed that the odds were significantly lower among illiterate respondents compared to those with secondary and above-secondary education in both areas of Bangladesh, and a positive association was found between wealth status and handwashing behavior practiced in both urban and rural areas. In this study, the size of the family was statistically significant for both rural and urban areas of Bangladesh. Conclusion: Handwashing is the most prominent consideration for controlling COVID-19. Policymakers are striving to improve handwashing facilities by increasing awareness-raising programs, especially among rural residents of Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented health crisis and dramatically changed human lives. This study aims to identify risk factors related to health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among COVID-19 patients who were discharged from the hospital. Material and Methods: A total of 557 COVID-19 patients of Jhenaidah district of Bangladesh who had tested positive before February 1 of 2021 were selected for this cross-sectional study. The EuroQol 5-dimensional-5 level questionnaire was used to measure the HRQoL. Thai value set was used to assess the full health status. Chi-square test was used to find out the association of HRQoL with sociodemographic and clinical factors. Finally, logistic regression was used to find out the predictors of the dimensions of HRQoL. Results: Using the Thai value set, it is observed that 57.27% of participants had reported that they had experienced moderate or severe health problems. About 40.57% of the respondent reported anxiety or depression, whereas 39.14% of the participants had experienced moderate or severe pain or discomfort. The result of the logistic regression showed that age, gender, occupation, place of care, heart problems, and diabetes significantly affect various dimensions of the HRQoL. Conclusion: The COVID-19 significantly depletes the health condition of the patients in both mental and physical aspects. Therefore, the policy-makers and government should need to come with comprehensive strategies to reduce the psychological and physical health woe of COVID-19 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature considers taxation as a powerful tool for governance and state building. Despite broad supports from historical data, it lacks systematic, case-specific research especially in developing countries. This paper contributes to this critical gap; it investigates the governance of VAT around issues of transparency, accountability, and participation. It shows how various stakeholders in Bangladesh situations have subverted, corrupted, and toned down the VAT to suit their specific interests. Consequently, tax compliance covenant that is at the heart of governance dividend thesis has remained largely elusive. The Bangladesh experience offers useful lessons for other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discretion is an inevitable part of bureaucratic action and tax discretion is positioned between the tax authority's immediate concern for maximizing revenue and the wider concern for good governance. Striking a balance between the conflicting concerns is more challenging in developing countries than in others. The paper explores the extent of tax discretions in the context of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Bangladesh. Based primarily on documentary analysis, the paper adopts a social science perspective to argue that the discretionary powers in the Bangladesh VAT regime infringe taxpayers' rights to certainty, transparency and fairness and hence they require an effective control mechanism for confining, structuring and checking these discretions. The paper also argues that besides striking a balance between the revenue authority's discretion and the rule of law, the administrative discretionary behaviour of the revenue authority needs to be streamlined by the social control that entails a paradigm of good governance as well as by specific written guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]