SINGAPORE: With the COVID-19 pandemic barely in our rearview mirror, listening to of a current virus outbreak in India might understandably trigger alarm.
On the one hand, folks across the globe nonetheless bear in mind correct protocols and how one can preserve themselves protected. Alternatively, one other widespread illness outbreak is one thing our world can ill-afford.
The excellent news is that at this level, the transmission pathways of the Nipah virus are restricted, particularly compared to the virus answerable for the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, and even the flu virus. There have been outbreaks almost yearly in several international locations in Asia, together with one in Bangladesh final yr, since 1998.
As well as, though there was a cross-border unfold from Malaysia to Singapore throughout that first outbreak, there have been no cases of a widespread outbreak that affected a number of international locations.
Assuming the virus is not going to mutate to make transmission simpler, the outbreak is prone to be contained in West Bengal. Whereas some experiences say that 5 persons are presently contaminated, India’s well being ministry has mentioned that there have been solely two confirmed circumstances of Nipah virus since final month. Nevertheless, nearly 100 folks have been quarantined.
The World Well being Group has listed Nipah, like COVID-19, among the many prime 10 precedence ailments due to the opportunity of an epidemic being triggered. Subsequently, it mustn’t come as a shock that some Asian international locations, resembling Thailand and Nepal, are taking an extra precautionary step of screening arrivals from India.
In China, due to widespread journey in the course of the Lunar New Yr interval, some have requested for journey from India to be curtailed and even shut down.
Nevertheless, in a report issued final Friday (Jan 23) by China’s Centre for Illness Management and Prevention that urged elevated vigilance in opposition to travel-borne infectious ailments, whereas malaria and dengue fever had been on the record, Nipah was not.
What’s the Nipah virus?
The virus is a zoonotic one, which suggests it’s transmitted from animals, resembling pigs and bats, to people. Transmission can even unfold from one particular person to a different, by methods resembling contaminated meals or shut contact.
The incubation interval for Nipah can final between 4 and 21 days. Some contaminated people by no means present signs, and those that do normally exhibit flu-like signs, together with fever, headache, muscle ache, respiratory signs, and fatigue, abruptly.
At worst, those that are contaminated could develop meningitis or encephalitis, irritation of the mind. That is the hallmark of the Nipah virus.
The virus additionally has a excessive fatality price, reported to be round 40% and 75%, relying on the outbreak, however as a result of previous outbreaks have been contained inside particular geographic areas and the variety of infections has been comparatively small, the variety of deaths from the Nipah virus has additionally been small.
Thus far, there aren’t any vaccines or remedies for the Nipah virus, however a Jan 28 report within the South China Morning Submit says {that a} drug in China, initially developed to deal with Covid-19, could assist handle Nipah outbreaks and include the unfold of the virus. /TISG
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