All the five people who were officially diagnosed with Nipah virus infection this year died, said the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control, and Research on Thursday.
The mortality rate stood at 100 per cent, turning out to be as deadly as rabbis, the disease where the mortality rate is 100 per cent as well.
IEDCR director Tahmina Shirin disclosed the information at a discussion titled 鈥楽pread and Risks of the Nipah Virus鈥�, held at the IEDCR headquarters in the capital Dhaka.
She said that in the past year, they detected 13 cases, among them 10 died and three survived. The mortality rate was 77 per cent.
鈥楶atients were brought to hospital late for treatment. Even one of them was brought dead,鈥� she said, adding that the delay resulted in the casualties this year.
The cases were reported in four districts 鈥� Naogaon, Khulna, Shariatpur and Manikganj.
The IEDCR said that the patients had history of drinking date palm raw juice.
Tahmina said that there was no remedy to the disease and children were the worst victim of the disease spread by bat.
Since the first detection in 2001, a total of 343 patients have been diagnosed with the infection and of them, 245 died.
At present, 88 patients are under follow up.
According to the IEDCR data, 343 individuals across 34 districts have been infected, with a mortality rate of 71 per cent. Of these, 28 were cases of person-to-person transmission.
According to the WHO, Nipah virus infection outbreaks are seasonal in Bangladesh, with cases usually occurring annually between December and May.
Syed Moinuddin Satter, associate scientist and project coordinator at icddr,b, said that Nipah virus spreads through bat secretions or saliva.
So, consuming contaminated raw date palm and bird-bitten half fruits are highly risky, he said.
He said that the virus damaged the surviving patients in such a way that they just became a burden to their families.
The Icddr,b is doing research on a rapid diagnostic test of Nipah virus, which will allow testing and detecting the presence of the virus within 10 to 15 minutes, he said, adding that he hoped that the research institute would complete it within 2025.
He also said that Oxford was doing research on NiV vaccine and the first phase had already been completed.
It will be on the market by 2027 or 2028, he added.
Bangladesh experienced several Nipah outbreaks over the years, including one in 2001 when nine people died out of 13 positive cases in Meherpur.
In 2004, 50 people died out of 67 Nipah-infected persons across the country.
