In many Arab countries, social media are announcing the emergence of a “deadly new virus transmitted by bats”.
On Twitter, Internet users indicate that the virus, bearing the name of “Nipah”, worries scientists about this new epidemic, and this is all the more serious as “the pharmaceutical giants are not interested in it…”.
Nipah virus infection is believed to be an emerging and serious zoonosis in animals and humans. The natural hosts of this virus are fruit bats of the family of Pteropodidae, which belongs to the genre Pteropus.
However, the WHO says the Nipah virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak in Kampung Sungai Nipah, Malaysia. The intermediate host was then the pig, but in later outbreaks there was no intermediate host. In 2004, in Bangladesh, people were infected with this virus after consuming fresh juice from date palm that had been contaminated with fruit bats.
Human-to-human transmission has also been reported, including in a hospital in India.
The clinical picture in humans ranges from asymptomatic infection to acute respiratory syndrome and fatal encephalitis. The Nipah virus can also cause disease in pigs and other pets. There is no vaccine for either humans or animals. Intensive symptomatic treatment remains the main method of managing this infection in humans.
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