A total of 10 people among 14 infected with Nipah virus died in 2023.
Professor Dr Tahmina Shirin, director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), provided the information in a press conference on Sunday.
The number of deaths is the highest compared to the last seven years.
She said: “We have emphasized on surveillance of Nipah virus. Even if someone survives after being infected with Nipah virus, various physical complications occur.”
Usually more than 70% of infected people die and people who drink raw date juice and fruits partially eaten by birds, especially bats, have the possibility of being infected with the virus.
Besides, healthy people who come in contact with the infected ones also have the possibility of being infected with the virus and it spreads from person to person quickly which is a matter of concern.
How is the virus transmitted?
Nipah virus is commonly found in fruit bats (Pteropodidae), which feed on nectar and pollen, as opposed to vampire bats which eat insects and drink the blood of animals. Fruit bats are much bigger and use their eyes, and not ultrasound, to orient themselves.
Scientists still do not conclusively know how the virus is transmitted from fruit bats to pigs, cattle or even humans. However, there are indications that both humans and animals can get infected by coming in contact with the contaminated saliva and urine of fruit bats.
Why is the virus so dangerous?
The Nipah virus aggressively inflames the brain. The US Centers for Disease Control cites an incubation period of five days to two weeks.
Initial symptoms resemble those of the flu: fever, nausea and severe headache. Some patients experience respiratory problems. Later, disorientation, dizziness and confusion follow.
Within one to two days, patients can slip into a coma and die. The mortality rate for Nipah disease is 70%.
How can the disease be treated?
There is no vaccination or medication against the Nipah virus — neither for animals nor for humans. Medications have so far only been able to alleviate the symptoms.
In principle, patients must be immediately isolated and taken to an intensive care unit where vital body functions can be supported.
Contact persons or suspected cases must be quarantined to stop the spread of the infectious disease.
Where does the Nipah virus come from?
Nipah virus was first discovered in 1998 in the Malaysian village of Sungai Nipah. Febrile encephalitis — an illness caused by the virus entering the brain — and, in some cases, severe respiratory infections were observed in 229 individuals.
Men who worked in slaughterhouses were the first to catch the infection. It became apparent that one could contract the disease from animals.
Around the same time, a comparatively mild outbreak of a respiratory infection caused by an unknown pathogen was observed in pigs in Malaysia.
Only later did scientists find that the workers and the pigs had been infected by the same virus. As a precaution, more than 1 million pigs — half the country's total pig population — were culled in Malaysia.
Since then, infection cases of the highly contagious virus have been spotted only sporadically, for example in Bangladesh in 2001 and 2003, and in Kerala in 2018 and 2021.