The government’s disease monitoring arm, the IEDCR, has identified nipah as the cause of five deaths in the northwestern Thakurgoan district in Bangladesh.
It has warned the people again ‘not to drink raw date juice’ which is the source of the viral infection that can pass from one person to another.
The IEDCR in a statement on Sunday said it found the presence of the virus in the sample of the first deceased. The others came into contact of that person.
They all died in the last week of February.
The bat-borne nipah virus that killed nearly 70 per cent of those infected in Bangladesh has remained a health ‘concern’ since 2001.
It has been striking every year since then between December and April, bdnews24.com reports.
Anthropological study says drinking raw date or palm sap in the morning is an age-old practice in Bangladesh, especially in rural areas, where there is a general lack of hygiene.
The virus has so far infected 303 people, and 211 of of them died.
This year six people died out of eight infections.