Five people were infected with the Nipah virus in Faridpur and Rajbari districts and four of them died this month, said the director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research on Sunday.
‘A total of five people were infected with the virus of whom four died in January 2011,’ said Mahmudur Rahman.
The death rate of victims of the Nipah virus is very high, he said, as around 75 per cent of the infected people do not survive.
Mahmudur urged the people not to panic as the disease is now almost under control and they are vigilantly monitoring the situation.
A total of 152 people were infected with the Nipah virus across the country since 2001, of whom 113 died, said IEDCR officials.
The virologists advise people in the Nipah-prevalent areas not to eat fruits that have been bitten by fruit bats, or drink the raw juices of palm and date trees. Heat kills the Nipah virus, said experts, so if the juices are boiled they can do no harm to consumers. They also suggested that date juice should not be kept in open pitchers.
According to experts, most of the Nipah infection cases last year were reported from January to May. This is the breeding period of fruit bats and pregnant bats harbour this virus and probably transmit it to humans.
When children collect fruits and eat them without washing, the virus discharged from bats’ saliva is transmitted to them.
Experts also urged the
parents in Nipah-prone areas not to allow their children to play under fruit trees.
Mahmudur stressed the need for creating awareness of the virus among the country’s people, especially villagers. At the same time government should set up a separate unit and introduce protective measures for treating Nipah virus victims in the hospitals, he said.
In 2004 a doctor and in 2010 an intern doctor, after being infected by the patients at the hospitals, were killed by the Nipah virus.
Via: New Age
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/frontpage/6275.html
