Experts urge India, Bangladesh to share information on infectious diseases

India and Bangladesh should share disease surveillance information for the “safety and security” of both countries, a US CDC specialist posted in New Delhi says.

Nurul Islam Hasibbdnews24.com
Published : 26 Jan 2015, 12:29 PM
Updated : 26 Jan 2015, 03:35 PM

“The more it (information sharing) is done, the more safe and secure we are,” Dr Shaikh Shah Hossain told bdnews24.com on the sidelines of a workshop in Dhaka on Monday.

He is a public health specialist and Animal Human Interface Officer of the India’s Global Disease Detection Regional Centre, Center for Global Health.

He came to Dhaka to attend a three-day ‘Bangladesh-India Cooperative Workshop on Anthrax’.

Bangladesh government’s disease monitoring arm, IEDCR, and the US CDC are jointly organising the workshop.

Hossain said both India and Bangladesh had institutes that could work together in disease control programme.

“We hope at the end of this workshop we’ll be able to develop some strategies on anthrax cooperation” he told bdnews24.com.

“If we can work together we can know and trace the route of transmission (anthrax) to stop it using modern diagnostic techniques,” he said.

“Unless we know that, we cannot do it (stop transmission). So, that disease surveillance information has to be exchanged between the two countries,” he said.

Bangladesh and India have been co-operating in many areas since 1971, but the two sides inked a MoU for the health sector collaboration only in 2013.

But no joint working group meeting has been held yet.

Public health specialists in Bangladesh have long been demanding a joint infectious diseases contingency plan between the neighbours to control the emerging bugs like nipah, anthrax, and avian influenza.

Rising travel and trade between the two countries give these bugs an easier and faster access beyond the frontiers.

But the issue had never been discussed.

IEDCR Director Prof Mahmudur Rahman told bdnews24.com that initially both sides can share information by posting those on their own official website.

“We post all our information on the website (IEDCR) when a disease breaks out. Anyone can access it. If Indian authority does the same thing we can also access their information. This can help us until a formal channel of information sharing develops,” he said.

The deadly nipah outbreaks in Thakurgaon in January 2007 and in Hatiabandha of Lalmonirhat in 2011 were also close to the borders.

It was quite likely that the bat transmitted virus also struck the other part of the border. But there had been no information in this regard.

It was also happened in the case of anthrax, the issue which the human and animal experts of both the countries are now discussing.

Bangladesh found the bacterial disease widespread in a border district of Meherpur. But there is no information about the situation on the other side of the border.

Prof Nitish Chandra Debnath, coordinator of One Health Bangladesh, said infectious disease control and containment completely depends on collaboration between neighbouring as well as other countries in the region.

“A joint surveillance, early warning system and laboratory collaboration can help both countries prepare for any (disease) outbreak before hand,” he had earlier told bdnews24.com.

Why anthrax?

Both Health Secretary Syed Monjurul Islam and Fisheries and Livestock Secretary Shelina Afroza, while inaugurating the workshop at IEDCR, sought collaboration and cooperation from India in disease control.

They shared similar views of joint efforts to fight off anthrax.

This is the first such workshop between the two countries on any infectious disease control.

Anthrax has been seen as “a regional zoonotic disease concern” in the workshop.

The IEDCR director Prof Rahman told bdnews24.com that it was difficult to eradicate anthrax.

The bacterium can survive in harsh conditions for even centuries in the soil and even in the developed world it reappeared.

It took a heavy toll on Bangladesh’s export-oriented leather industry in 2010 when jittery people abandoned cow meat.

Human gets the bacterium through cattle. It goes into cattle from soil while grazing.

Prof Rahman said India and Bangladesh have cattle trade both formal and informal.

He said cattle vaccination was the key to prevent the transmission. But the vaccination must be covered a particular area surrounding the outbreak zone which is called “ring vaccine”.

So if the disease breaks out in a remote border district, cattle on the other side of the border may need vaccination.

“If we can work together, we can expect maximum success,” he said.

He said there were instances of anthrax being used in bio-terrorism and both WHO and CDC kept it in the list of biological threats.

“So we also need to work together to ensure bio-security for global security,” he said.

So far, Bangladesh has recorded anthrax infection on the skin that means people got it from handling diseased animals.

There is a tendency among poor Bangladeshis to slaughter a cow or goat immediately after it falls ill, a practice which is strongly discouraged by the IEDCR to prevent the infection.