According to Health Minister Mohammad Nasim, government will bear the treatment cost of the patients diagnosed with Zika virus.
The minister made the announcement on Tuesday while briefing the media at the Health Ministry.
As part of precautionary steps, the government has set up thermal scanner in Dhaka Airport for the people coming from the 30 Zika-affected countries.
Abul Khair Md Shamsuzzaman, directorate general of health services, who was present at the briefing, said that no passenger infected with the Zika virus has entered the country from abroad so far.
In case of spotting any suffering from fever, further investigations will be made to detect the virus.
“Until we have been confirmed that he or she is not carrying the virus, we will keep him in Isolation Ward, a special room set up inside the airport for the purpose,” Nasim said.
“There is no reason to panic about the virus in Bangladesh. Government has taken all necessary steps to control the spread of the Zika virus,” he added.
Aedes aegypti, the carrier of the virus, is also responsible for spreading dengue fever throughout the Indian sub-continent region, especially in Bangladesh and India.
Concerns have grown even stronger inside country after news media in Thailand and Taiwan in January reported cases of the virus infection among locals. Both places are popular destinations for Bangladeshi travellers, increasing the risk of the virus also spreading here.
Zika, an emerging Aedes-mosquito-borne virus, is spreading throughout the Americas recently and it could reach Bangladesh anytime, health experts warn.
At the moment, the Central and Latin Americas have been hit the hardest, with more than three million reported cases of infection last year, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Source: Ittefaq
