The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The people, who fell sick in different areas of the country with the new and dangerous Nipah virus in recent years probably caught it from eating contaminated fruit or from contact with infected domestic animals, scientists said in the capital yesterday.

There have been nine Nipah outbreaks in Bangladesh since 2001, resulting in the deaths of between 40 and 100 per cent of infected people, said Jahangir Hossain, of the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research in Bangladesh (ICDDRB), popularly known as the Dhaka Cholera Hospital. "Three outbreaks in Bangladesh were caused when people ate fresh date palm sap, a local sweet delicacy, which had been contaminated by bats," he said in a statement yesterday.

Jahangir Hossain, who issued the statement on behalf of the Society for General Microbiology as one of its top leaders, said, "Because both people and animals in Bangladesh often eat fresh date palm sap and fruits which have been bitten by bats, contaminated food and domestic animals form an important transmission pathway for Nipah virus to infect people."

Fruit bats are believed to be a natural reservoir of the Nipah virus, which was first seen when it killed more than 100 people out of 257 infected in Malaysia in 1999, said a story created by the French international news agency Reuters.

As per local media reports the Nipah virus has killed at least 89 people in Bangladesh since 2001, it added.

Jahangir Hossain said the first outbreaks in Malaysia started when pigs on farms ate fruit, which had been bitten by infected bats. The pigs later developed coughs and breathing difficulties, and the virus soon spread to pig farmers and abattoir workers.

The deadly brain and lung disease is now spreading into rural India and Bangladesh. In one outbreak in Bangladesh, people became infected after contact with sick cows, while close contact with pig herds was associated with another outbreak.

Jahangir Hossain's team is working with date palm sap collectors to stop bats from contaminating date palm sap.

"If we can identify the factors that allow the virus to be passed from bats to humans so frequently, we might be able to help intervene and interfere with the transmission pathways," he said.

He suggested the Government, saying, "Current efforts should focus on restricting the consumption of fruit bitten by bats, restricting human contact with sick animals, and protecting date palm sap from contamination by bat secretions."