DHAKA (AFP) -- The monsoon death toll in Bangladesh crossed 600 as thousands more were taken ill with water-borne diseases in flood-hit districts, officials said.

At least 5,000 people were admitted to hospitals with diarrhoea in the last 24 hours, bringing the number of patients to about 60,000 in August, health official Aisha Akhter said on Wednesday.
The death toll rose by 38 overnight, said Akhter, raising the tally for this year's monsoon season to 607.
Akhter said since late July at least 110,000 people had now been admitted to hospital with water-borne diseases in the country's 39 flood-hit districts.
The outbreak of the disease has stretched the impoverished country's medical facilities, prompting the authorities to cancel leave for doctors, the health department said, but they stopped short of calling the situation an epidemic.
On Tuesday, an unprecedented 1,045 patients were admitted to the country's largest diarrhoea center, four times the number the hospital usually treats on a given day, Akhter said.
""It's the highest number ever of patients admitted in our hospital on a single day,"" said Azharul Islam Khan, a doctor at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDRB).
To tackle the situation, the government on Tuesday transformed a Haj pilgrimage transit centre into a makeshift hospital and also deployed 31 mobile medical teams to treat patients nationwide, interim health minister A.S.M. Motiur Rahman said.
""There is nothing to be panicked about. We have mobilised thousands of medical teams across the flood-hit regions to tackle the outbreak of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases,"" he said late Tuesday.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concern.
""This situation remains a major source of concern for us, especially in the capital and around Dhaka,"" Veronique Taveau, a spokeswoman for UNICEF told journalists in Geneva