Bangladesh recorded its first Nipah virus (NiV) death this year when a woman from Naogaon died on January 28 with symptoms of the virus, officials confirmed.
“We carried out the necessary tests after being informed that a woman had been admitted to hospital with Nipah virus symptoms and confirmed that she died of Nipah,” Shamin Sultana, senior scientific officer of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), told The Daily Star today.
After August last year, this is the first Nipah virus death in the country, she said, adding that a total of four people died from the virus in 2025.
The patient was a woman aged between 40 and 50 and a resident of Naogaon, according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Disease Outbreak News released on Friday.
She developed symptoms consistent with NiV infection on January 21, including fever, headache, muscle cramps, loss of appetite, weakness, and vomiting, followed by hypersalivation, disorientation, and convulsions. On January 27, she became unconscious and was referred by a local physician to a tertiary hospital. She was admitted on January 28, and the Nipah surveillance team collected throat swabs and blood samples. The patient died the same day.
The patient had reported repeated consumption of raw date palm sap between January 5 and 20.
Following the confirmed diagnosis, an outbreak investigation team began investigations on January 30, and a total of 35 contacts have been identified. All of them tested negative but are being kept under observation, Shamin said.
Since 2001, Bangladesh has documented 348 NiV cases, including 250 deaths, corresponding to an overall case fatality rate of 72 percent, according to WHO. Nearly half of these cases were primary cases with a confirmed history of consuming raw date palm sap or “tari” (fermented date palm sap), while 29 percent resulted from direct person-to-person transmission.
Most cases in Bangladesh are reported from December to April, suggesting a seasonal pattern. According to IEDCR data, five people were infected in 2024 and all of them died. In 2023, 13 people were infected, of whom 10 died.
Nipah virus is a zoonotic pathogen with a high death rate and no licensed vaccine or treatment, though early supportive treatment can save lives, according to WHO. It is transmitted to humans through infected animals such as bats, or via food contaminated with saliva, urine, or excreta of infected animals. It can also be transmitted directly from person to person through close contact with an infected individual. Fruit bats, also known as flying foxes, are the natural reservoir of the virus.
