Dhaka, Mar 3 : The scientists at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR-B), have identified five cases of Zika-infected patients in the country, the country's health authorities reported on Monday.

The samples were collected from the infected patients in 2023 and this is the first identification of a cluster of Zika-infected patients in Bangladesh.

The identification of the cases of Zika virus has called for larger, nationwide screening to measure the true burden of the disease in Bangladesh. The infected patients lived within a one-kilometre radius of each other and had no travel history outside the country in the past two years. One of the five Zika virus infected patients was also diagnosed with dengue virus. This is the first time co-infection has been detected in Bangladesh, local media reported.

It is perceived that the route of transmission may probably be from the Bangladeshi immigrants working in different Zika virus affected countries in South Asia. These workers might have got infected and circulated the virus within and beyond their communities in Bangladesh. The ICDDR suggested that more diagnostic capacity must be developed, and systematic surveillance on a national level may help to control the outbreak in the future.

The first three cases of Zika virus infection in humans were reported in Nigeria in 1954, with only scattered reports of about a dozen human infections identified over a 50-year period. It was not until 2007 that the Zika virus raised its ugly head with infections noted in three-quarters of the population on the tiny island of Yap located between the Philippines and Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean, followed by a major outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013. The virus remained confined to a narrow equatorial band in Africa and Asia until 2014, when it began to spread eastward, first toward Oceania and then to South America.

According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, the Zika virus is primarily transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito from the Aedes genus, mainly Aedes aegypti, in tropical and subtropical regions. Aedes mosquitoes usually bite during the day, peaking during early morning and late afternoon/evening. This is the same mosquito that transmits dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever.

/IANS