FARIDPUR, May 6: Prof CT Tan, Professor of Medicine Department of Malay University of Malaysia, who came to help Bangladesh combat the deadly Nipah encephalitis – an infectious disease – has said the virus directly spread from bats to human.

In an exclusive interview with UNB Wednesday, Prof Tan said Nipah belongs to a group of virus called paramyxovirus which mainly affected people working and living in pig farms.
The bats carried the virus to the pig farms and infected the pigs first before affecting people living in and around those farms, he said tracing the root of the contagion.

Elaborating, he said that because of forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia and the El Nino in 1997, there was a drop in the fruit production, resulting in the bats foraging into the fruit trees in the pig farms.

As a result, Nipah virus spread to the pigs and subsequently to human, he added.
When asked about the Nipah virus that had broken out in Malaysia at the end of 1998 and lasted till May 1999, he said the contagion had affected more than 300 patients in Malaysia, killing 120 of them.

When asked about the cause of the recent outbreak of the epidemic in Faridpur district, he replied that the investigation has shown that the Nipah virus was detected in the large fruit bats called Pteropus which are very commonly found in Bangladesh.

He said that Nipah infection in Bangladesh is likely due to direct spread from those bats to humans, probably because children in Bangladesh often take fruits half-eaten by the bats that are infected with the “In the recent outbreak in Faridpur, there appeared to be clear evidence of human to human spread of the virus as well, causing the outbreak of encephalitis, the disease from Nipah virus. The illness seems to have infected many adults who had close contact with Nipah virus encephalitis patients,” he added.

He expressed his dismay that affected patients in Bangladesh usually did not seek treatment in hospitals though modern medicine could help them.

Prof Tan was, however, satisfied that Nipah encephalitis is being treated in designated hospitals like the Medical College Hospitals at Dhaka and Faridpur. But he stressed the need for putting in place clinical facilities to diagnose the disease quickly.

When asked about the risk of further spread of the Nipah epidemic, he said the virus is a recurring phenomenon in Bangladesh.

He pointed out that previous studies in Malaysia showed that not all bats carried the Nipah virus and furthermore, the virus seems to be only excreted periodically.

“It is important for the children not to eat fruits half-eaten by bats and they should wash fruits before eating them,” he said when he was asked how to control the disease.
Prof Tan also warned that when a patient is suspected to have Nipah encephalitis there should be precautions to prevent the spread of the infection to close contacts and healthcare professionals.

Studies in Malaysia have found that the virus is present in the saliva and respiratory secretions and hence it can spread quickly to close contacts.

Dr KT Wong, Prof of University of Malaysia and KB Chua, Consultant Virologist in the Public Health Laboratory, Health Ministry of Malaysia, were also present during the interview.