DHAKA, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of cutaneous anthrax patients keep rising in Bangladesh, with 21 more people found to have contracted the infectious disease on Thursday morning, pushing the total count to 254.
Mahmudur Rahman, chief of Bangladesh's Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) under the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, told Xinhua Thursday, the disease has so far spread to four out of the country 's 64 districts.
With 21 new cases detected on Thursday morning, he said, " records of the IEDCR till today (Thursday) morning confirmed 254 infected people."
They are all infected with cutaneous anthrax, Rahman further said.
The anthrax outbreak first started in Bangladesh's Sirajganj district, some 134 km northwest of capital Dhaka, in late August and later it spread to the neighboring Pabna district.
At the latest, the disease has spread to two more Sirajganj's neighboring districts -- Tangail and Kushtia -- this week.
Anthrax is a highly contagious disease, usually transmitted on people through contact with meat, blood or skin of an animal that has been infected.
Health officials said most of the anthrax infected people in the districts informed them that they have either consumed or come in contact of meat of animals that were slaughtered after fallen ill on different occasions.
Rahman said most of the previously anthrax infected people have almost recovered from the disease which has caused wound-like black lesions on the skin.
He however confirmed nobody died of the disease.
But an official from Live Stock Department control room said 28 cows and 5 goats have died of anthrax in Sirajganj and Pabna since the outbreak of the disease. Apart from this, the control room's duty officer Md. Ataur Rahman said 34 animals were also anthrax infected in the districts.
The official said a total of 137,343 animals including 118,795 cows and 15,254 goats have so far been vaccinated in Sirajganj and Pabna districts since the outbreak of anthrax. But the official claimed the disease has remained under control in the districts as there are no fresh report of outbreak.
Regarding the measures in Tangail and Kushtia districts, he said steps are underway also to contain the outbreak of the disease in the districts.
"Till now there is no information in our hands whether any animal infected or died of the disease in the districts. We'll very soon get information as local officials are conducting survey, " the official said.
He said officials concerned across the country have already been asked to strengthen monitoring so that no farm or domestic animal can be slaughtered before proper test.
