Nipping Nipah

The outbreak of the deadly virus in West Bengal has raised an alarm in Nepal.

The zoonotic Nipah virus, transmitted from animals such as bats or pigs to humans, has been reported in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal. According to Indian media reports, five individuals tested positive for the virus in a single week, and around 100 people are currently in quarantine. As the disease has a fatality rate of 40-75 percent according to the World Health Organisation, healthcare workers label it a ‘deadly disease’. In its first outbreak in 1998 across Malaysia and Singapore, nearly 300 people were infected, of whom over 100 died. Similarly, when 23 people were infected in 2018 in Kerala, India, 21 died . It is also significantly more lethal than the coronavirus, requiring close vigilance.