A schoolgirl died Thursday night supposedly of Nipah virus in Kumrakandi village of Rajbari’s Goalondo upazila.
The dead, Bithi Akter, 9, was a class II student at Goalondo Model Government Primary School and was the daughter of Akkas Ali Sheikh, a rickshaw-puller.
According to Bithi’s father, she ate an unclean plum from the roadside when she was returning home from school on Tuesday. The same night, she suffered from a high fever and breathing problems. On Wednesday, when her condition was deteriorating, her family admitted her to Goalondo Upazila Health Complex at night.
Describing the night, her father said Bithi had started to lose consciousness every now and then and seemed confused. On Thursday morning, seeing Bithi’s condition the emergency doctor at the health complex referred her to Faridpur Medical College Hospital, he added.
She was admitted to FMCH in the evening but at night she died.
When contacted, Civil Surgeon of Rajbari Dr Nurul Amin said they had collected the girl’s medical history and blood and cough samples to analyse. The samples were sent to Dhaka’s Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) for a lab-test to identify the disease, he added.
“We suspect the girl was attacked by the Nipah Virus since she ate a plum which might have been infected after a bat had bitten it.”
Another Nipa Virus attack took place in the same upazila in 2005.
