I’m an infectious disease expert. Here’s how concerned we should be about Nipah
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Three major ways Nipah virus can be transmitted
- An outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus in India has led several Asian countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, to introduce new screening and testing measures.
- Nipah is a zoonotic henipavirus with a human fatality rate between 40 and 75 per cent, known to cause severe neurological symptoms such as encephalitis.
- The virus primarily transmits from infected bats (via saliva, urine, or faeces) and through contaminated food, especially date palm products, with human-to-human transmission being less common.
- Symptoms typically manifest within four days to three weeks and can include fever, headache, dizziness, and mental confusion; some survivors may experience relapsed encephalitis years later.
- There is currently no vaccine or widely available treatment for Nipah virus, although a potential treatment, m102.4, is undergoing clinical trials.
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