Nipah virus: Health minister warns against drinking raw date juice
Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque on Sunday advised countrymen to refrain from drinking raw date juice as the Nipah virus infection in the country has turned deadliest this season.
To date, five out of eight Nipah-infected people have died in the country, the minister noted during a media briefing at the conference room of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare today.
Earlier, one person, who had a history of consuming raw date palm juice, died from Nipah virus in the country in the first 10 days of the year.
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The victims got infected with the virus principally through consumption of date palm sap contaminated with bat saliva or urine, adds the state-owned research institute.
The fatality rate in any other infectious disease in the country is much lower than that of the Nipah virus, public health experts have said, adding that everyone is so scared about the coronavirus but the death rate in coronavirus is merely 1.23%.
According to the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control, and Research, Nipah virus infection is the most lethal among all communicable diseases in Bangladesh in terms of mortality rate, with 71% of the 327 people who had contracted the virus in the last 22 years dying from the disease
In 2022, three cases of Nipah were reported and two of them died.
Several researchers speculate that Nipah Virus (NiV) may be the next pandemic agent after Covid-19, and World Health Organisation (WHO) has listed Nipah virus as one of the ten viruses with pandemic potential.
Nipah virus is transmitted from animals to humans chiefly through foods contaminated by animals. It can also spread between people. Fruit bats from the genus "Pteropus" are its natural carrier.
Bangladesh reported its first Nipah case in 2001. According to the Infectious Diseases Division of icddr,b as of October 2021, a total of 322 Nipah cases have been reported, and 229 of them have succumbed to the infection. The infection has claimed the lives of 71.1% of the patients.
