The Nipah virus is fatal in 70% of cases. Without treatment or vaccine, this virus has been included by the WHO in the list of “priority emerging diseases likely to become a public health emergency”. The state of Kerala in southern India is currently on high alert. The virus has killed a dozen people in the space of two weeks and around 100 people have been placed in quarantine.
This virus is transmitted by fruit bats, bats frugivorous. It is harmless to them, but they contaminate fruit, tree sap and water with their saliva and feces. Furthermore, the bbc reveals that dead bats were discovered in the well of one of the infected families. To avoid the epidemic, the bodies were immediately cremated.
For the moment no vaccine
The virus was discovered in Malaysia in 1998. It had infected pig farms and then transmitted to humans. In 2004, people in Bangladesh were infected by drinking “fresh date palm juice”, says WHO. In India, the first transmissions were reported from 2003. Symptoms are vomiting, from headache, acute respiratory syndrome and severe neurological complications (encephalitis) which can lead to a coma. Those who do can have serious sequelae, with neurological disorders in 20% of cases. A vaccine is being researched in China, North America, Australia and even France. But no human trial has yet been launched.
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