Get to know the vaccine-free "Nipah virus."

The world was monitoring the return of the Nipah virus when Indian authorities announced that at least five infected people had been found and about 100 at risk in West Bengal, eastern India, where some of the infected were personnel working at a private hospital in Barasat, near the Kolkata capital of West Bengal.

🦇

The World Health Organization (WHO) has placed Nipah virus among the top pathogens at the outbreak level, and there is currently no vaccine against infection, nor is there any cure.

🦇

Where did the Nipah virus come from?

🦇

The main natural source of infection is the fruit bat (Pteropus), but the animals that can be infected with the Nipah virus are pigs, dogs, goats, cats, horses, and sheep, which are considered a hotbed of disease. Humans are often infected when consuming food contaminated with saliva, urine, or bat feces, especially raw latex from date palms, a tradition well known in parts of South Asia, so it is likely that the infection will spread in agricultural rural areas and areas adjacent to the forest.

🦇

Nipah virus (Nipah virus: NiV) is an RNA-type virus in the genus Henipaviruses family Paramyxovidae, which causes encephalitis primarily, and is in the same genus as Hendra virus (Hendra virus: HeV)), which causes respiratory diseases primarily.

🦇

The first known discovery in Malaysia was in September 1998, which caused severe respiratory infections and human encephalitis, with 265 cases and 105 deaths. In that outbreak, over a million pigs were removed to help control the spread of the disease in its early stages.

🦇

In 1999, a patient was found in Singapore from exposure to pigs imported from Malaysia, with 11 cases and one death. Later, an outbreak was found in Sirikuri, northern India, in 2001, with 66 cases and 45 deaths. There was an outbreak in Bangladesh in 2001-2012, with 214 cases and 166 deaths.

🦇

The outbreak in India and Bangladesh is caused by the consumption of water from dates that contaminate the saliva of fruit bats and are transmitted to people. Unlike the outbreak in Malaysia, which involves exposure to pigs, as well as different symptoms, it is divided into Malaysian species and Bangladeshi species. Later in 2014, there was an outbreak in the Philippines, with 17 cases and numerous horse deaths. The outbreak was caused by exposure to infected horses.

🦇

Infestations of Nipah disease in India continue to be reported annually. Infestations often coincide with seasonal behavior of fruit bats and dietary traditions such as drinking nectar from fresh date palms, especially in winter and spring. The fact that some infected people may show no early symptoms makes surveillance more difficult.

🦇

🦠 Nipah virus similar to COVID-19?

Nipah and Covid-19 viruses are different in several ways:

🔴 Cause of disease: Nipah virus is a virus in the paramyzovirus group, while COVID-19 is caused by coronavirus.

🔴 Transmission: Nipah disease is transmitted primarily from animal to human and through direct human-to-human contact, and COVID-19 transmits mainly through airborne dust, making it very easy to contact in the human population.

🔴 Symptoms: Although both diseases can cause shortness of breath, Nipah disease is more often associated with neurological symptoms and encephalitis, while COVID-19 can cause a variety of symptoms, such as fever, cough, loss of taste or smell, and so on.

🔴 Preventive measures: Preventive strategies vary by means of transmission, with COVID-19 emphasizing the wearing of sanitary masks and social distancing, while Nipah disease prevention emphasizes avoiding contact with certain animals and contaminated food.

🦇

Early infections with Nipah virus often have non-specific symptoms, ranging in symptoms from mild to severe, making it difficult to distinguish from common viral infectious diseases. Patients often have high fever, headache, muscle pain, and sore throat. Some may have respiratory symptoms such as cough and shortness of breath, which increase the risk of human-to-human transmission through respiratory aerosols.

🦇

The virus progresses rapidly into severe neurological diseases, especially encephalitis, possibly lethargy, confusion, seizures, and comas.

🦇

While Nipah virus is more difficult to contact than COVID-19, it can be more serious. With Nipah virus can lead to acute respiratory conditions and severe neurological diseases, it has a high mortality rate. Because there is no specific vaccine or antiretroviral drug approved yet, it has caused repeated outbreaks in South and Southeast Asia, Nipah virus is a major public health problem wherever it occurs.

🦇

The Nepalese government has now raised surveillance measures to prevent an epidemic of Nipah virus entering Nepal after the epidemic was discovered in the neighboring state of West Bengal, India.

🦇

.

According to a study in Thailand by the Nipah virus, 7.8 percent of Nipah virus infections in fruit bats from central, eastern and southern regions are defined as dangerous contagious diseases, according to the Contagious Diseases Act 2015, which must be reported within three hours when a confirmed patient is found.

🦇

A global epidemic: traces of the virus have been found in Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Thailand, and Timor-Leste.

🦇

By mid-2025, data from a study published in the journal PLoS Pathogens reported that viruses, along with several new strains of bacteria and parasites, had been discovered in bats living in orchards in Yunnan, southwestern China, where researchers at the Yunnan Resident Disease Control and Prevention Institute determined that these viruses are closely related to Nipah virus and Hendra virus, which cause severe inflammation in the brain and affect respiratory diseases in humans.

🦇

This finding is particularly important, as Yunnan is recognized as a hotbed of bat diversity. Although the true origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is unclear, numerous studies suggest that horseshoe bats are one of the most likely carrier animals to spread a new species of coronavirus from bats to humans.

🦇

However, all viruses, fungi, bacteria and parasites that infect bats remain unknown, as much of the previous research focused solely on bats' feces, without examining their internal organs.

🦇

A recent study examined inside the kidneys of 142 bats from 10 strains, collected over a four-year period from five areas in Yunnan. Genome sequence analysis of the samples revealed 22 viruses, 20 of which were viruses that had never been found before in science. Of these, two were viruses belonging to the same genus as Nipah and Hendra viruses.

🦇

Also in the UK, two viruses causing rabies have been found in bats, EBLV-1 and EBLV-2. Both of these viruses are very rare and are found in only a small number of bats. Both of these bat viruses have been found in only 59 of the 19,000 bats that have been tested since 1986, and only 2 of the 18 bat species have detected the infection, serotine bats (Serotine bat) and Aberenton bats (Daubenton's bat).

🦇

A new pathogen called Camp Hill virus was discovered in Alabama, USA, by examining tissue samples of short-tailed shrew rats, which often live in the wild and are rarely exposed to people, by a virus found in the Henipa virus group.

🦇

However, viruses of the genus Henipaviruses can infect many animals, including bats, horses, monkeys, dogs, cats, and even mice, meaning that they adapt well and are likely to spread from animals to humans in many ways.

Credit: # blockdit stick to it