The Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research has detected for the first time five patients infected with Bat Reovirus in Bangladesh.
Bat Reovirus is a RNA virus that infects bats and can be transmitted to humans.
The director of the institute, Tahmina Shirin, told 抖阴精品 on Friday that they had collected samples from 136 patients suspectedly infected with Nipah virus but found that five of them were infected with Bat Reovirus.聽
鈥楢ll the patients had a history of drinking date juice,鈥� she said.聽
She, however, urged people not to worry but to maintain health guidelines and avoid drinking raw date juice.
Bat Reovirus is a type of rotavirus that causes sneezing, cough and diarrhoea, said former Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University vice-chancellor and professor of virology Nazrul Islam.
It is a zoonotic disease and children and old age people are more vulnerable to it, he said.聽
He emphasised the need for maintaining personal hygiene, food hygiene and health guidelines, and wearing masks.
Dhaka Medical College virology professor Sultana Shahana Banu said that Reovirus was a public health concern. It is not related to drinking raw date juice only.聽
National Institute of Laboratory Medicine and Referral Centre鈥檚 virology department head Arifa Akram said that people might have been infected with Bat Reovirus as this virus was detected in the world far ago.
鈥楾here might be the presence of Reovirus in Bangladesh but we did not detect it earlier,鈥� said Arifa.聽
Bat Reovirus is asymptomatic and sometimes symptomatic, she said. 鈥榃e need more research on it.鈥櫬�
Bat Reovirus sometimes causes encephalitis and pneumonia and thus turns deadly, the virologists said.聽
