Two siblings die of unknown virus in Rajshahi

Two minor siblings have succumbed to an unknown virus at Chuniapara village in Durgapur of Rajshahi after eating Boroi (jujube). Later, physicians took their parents to isolation.

The deceased are Muntaha Marisha, 2, and Muftaul Masia, 5. They were the daughters of Monjur Hossain, 35, a teacher at Rajshahi Cadet College, and Poli Khatun, 30.

Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal, in-charge of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, said the two siblings ate the fruits before falling sick. When he asked the father if the jujube were cleaned before consumption, he replied, “The domestic help collected those from the ground under a tree, and those were not cleaned up.”

The physician initially suspects that it might be the Nipah virus that led the two minor girls to death. However, they sent samples to Dhaka to know the exact reason behind their deaths.

While talking to Prothom Alo at the hospital on Saturday night, the mother said the younger daughter developed a fever in the morning on Wednesday and succumbed to the illness while being taken to the hospital in the afternoon.

They noticed some black spots on her body after her death. On the following day, the elder daughter showed similar physical ailments, including fever and vomiting. The parents rushed her to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Rajshahi.

Later, she was shifted to the Rajshahi Medical College Hospital as her physical condition deteriorated around 9:00 pm on Friday. But she embraced the same fate around 5:00 pm on Saturday.

The physicians immediately took the parents to isolation at the hospital and began treatment for possible contraction of virus in them.