Nipah strikes back, avoid raw date sap

Drinking raw date sap is said to be a major health hazard as the bat-borne Nipah virus has hit Bangladesh again, infecting many people in the districts of Bangladesh.

This perennial health concern for Bangladesh during the winter (Dec to Apr) can be prevented if drinking of raw date sap is stopped.

“We always try to reach people only with this message ---please don’t drink raw date juice,” Prof Mahmudur Rahman, director of the government’s disease monitoring arm, IEDCR, told bdnews24.com.

The virus killed two people out of its three infections reported from the northern Noagoan district in a week.

IEDCR has rushed a team on the spot.

Drinking raw date or palm sap in the morning is an old practice in Bangladesh, especially in rural areas, where sense of hygiene is often lacking.

A study has found that the fruit bats, Pteropus, perch on the jars, put up on trees to collect the sap, and try to drink the juice. They also urinate into the pots.

Saliva and urine of this kind of bats carry the virus.

But it gets destroyed if the sap is boiled.

“The virus is killed in 70 degrees Celsius temperature,” Prof Rahman said.

The virus is highly infectious as it can easily pass on to other persons through contact.

Bangladesh first confirmed the virus in 2004 after testing samples from the US following deaths of number of people in an “unknown” disease.

The virus has killed nearly 75 percent of its infections.

It usually takes seven to eight days on an average between drinking raw date sap and the first symptoms of the infection to emerge — fever, altered mental status and seizure.

The IEDCR team follows a family up to 21 days of getting the first case of any of the family members.

Nipah virus was first detected in Malaysia in 1998 but at present Bangladesh is the only country in the world that reports the disease.

Presence of this virus has been found in at least 30 districts including bordering ones.

Though public health analysts believe that border districts of India have the virus, reports are not available from the Indian government to confirm it.