India (Commonwealth Union)_ Two people have died in India due to Nipah virus in recent weeks, and many more are feared to be carrying the lethal disease, which kills up to 75% of those it infects.
Public officials in India are said to be scrambling to contain the virus, by shuttering schools, offices and public transport to halt the easily spread disease.
Nipah has been identified by the World Health Organization as a high-priority disease like covid 19, with the potential to start another global pandemic, making any outbreak a public health crisis.
Nipah virus is a zoonotic virus and is said to be transmitted from animals to humans wile it could also be transmitted through contaminated food or directly between people, the WHO states on its website.
According to WHO, not only is the disease easily spread, but the incubation period can last up to 45 days, so people carrying the Nipah virus have no symptoms and feel healthy even as they are believed to spread the infection to others. They say there is no vaccine or cure for a Nipah infection, so treatment is usually limited to easing the symptoms of fever, headache, cough, sore throat and vomiting in those suffering from the disease.
In severe cases, patients can according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, experience disorientation, seizures, coma or brain swelling (encephalitis).
In fact, some people who have survived a Nipah infection have long-term neurological symptoms such as convulsions, seizures, and erratic personality changes.
Nipah virus is stated to infect many different animals, including horses, pigs, sheep, goats, cats, dogs and especially bats.
Associate professor of molecular engineering at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, Dr. Joanne Macdonald informed, “It’s carried by fruit bats who sit in the tops of trees, they can contaminate fruit, and when people eat that, they get the virus and then they get sick. In the case of coronavirus, it was stated : “In fact humans, like many animals such as bats, are associated with a whole range of viruses that are not harmful at all”. https://www.bats.org.uk/about-bats/bats-and-disease/covid-19-and-bats
Other outbreaks of Nipah virus are said to have occurred since the virus was first discovered in 1998 among pigs and pig farmers in Malaysia and Singapore.
The current outbreak is centered in India’s southern state of Kerala, where earlier outbreaks are said to have been recorded in 2018, 2019 and 2021.
Along with Nipah, the “priority diseases” have been identified by WHO that they believe possess the potential to cause the next pandemic : Marburg and Ebola viruses; Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; Middle East respiratory syndrome, also known as MERS, Lassa fever; Rift Valley fever; severe acute respiratory syndrome, commonly referred to as SARS; COVID-19 and Zika virus.
The last illness on the WHO list is the “Disease X,” a code name the WHO uses for a disease that they say are currently unknown to medical science as a cause of human infections.
As a new disease agent whether it’s a virus, a bacterium, a fungus or other pathogen, there likely won’t be any treatments available.
“This is not the stuff of science fiction. This is a scenario we have to prepare for,” CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations Dr. Richard Hatchett said.
