A new virus taken very seriously by the international scientific community. For a few days now, the state of Kerala (India) has been on health alert, following the death of a 14-year-old boy from encephalitis caused by a viral infection.
As reported The Indian Expressthe young victim started suffering from fever about ten days ago. The teenager was then hospitalized in the city of Kozhikode, where he tested positive for the Nipah virus. His condition then deteriorated rapidly from Friday, July 19 and the young boy finally died this Sunday of cardiac arrest.
Symptoms can range from “acute respiratory infection to fatal encephalitis”
According to the Indian media, this is the 21st death caused by the Nipah virus since 2018. A high figure that explains the significant precautionary measures deployed by the health authorities of Kerala as soon as the clinical case from which the young man was suffering was announced. The disease caused by this emerging virus is in fact particularly dangerous and relatively contagious.
A disease transmitted by animals
As explained World Organization for Animal Health (WHO) this disease “first appeared in domestic pigs in Malaysia and Singapore in 1998 and 1999, leading to the culling of more than a million pigs in order to control the disease”. This purge did not, however, prevent this infection from being transmitted to humans from 2001, according to WHO data. The first human contamination was observed in the Malaysian village of Nipah, which would give its name to the virus. Since then, cases of this disease have also been reported in Singapore, Bangladesh and therefore in India.
The United Nations public health agency describes the infection as “borne by bats and transmitted to humans from infected animals (such as bats and pigs) or from food that has been contaminated with the saliva, urine or feces of infected animals.” According to The Hindustan Timesthe teenager who recently died in India was apparently infected after eating a mombin plum “from a plot infested with bats”.
A worrying epidemic potential
“We must monitor this virus like a hawk,” confirms Jean-Claude Manuguerra, head of the emergency biological intervention unit at the Pasteur Institute, quoted by Europe 1. It is a virus that comes from bats like many viruses. Once it has been transmitted to humans, we have inter-human transmission which is more or less effective. And so once in humans, the epidemic can continue.”
A fatality rate of around 70%
Other particularly alarming elements have emerged from early research on the Nipah virus. The WHO states that “the case fatality rate recorded during outbreaks in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and Singapore is generally between 40% and 100%” and specifies that “at present, there is no effective treatment or vaccine against this disease”.
“What makes (this virus) particularly dangerous is its lethality rate, which can be around 70%, the fact that there is currently no treatment or vaccine available, and a variety of symptoms ranging from a high fever to fatal inflammation of the brain, summarizes virologist Hervé Fleury, professor emeritus at the CNRS and the University of Bordeaux, quoted by L’Express. If it mutated to become more transmissible, it could be catastrophic.”
Mandatory mask, confinement and negative tests
In view of these different elements, the WHO has classified the Nipah virus among those presenting “the greatest risk to public health due to their epidemic potential, like Covid-19 or Ebola,” as indicated The Women’s JournalThe outbreak in the state of Kerala, which has just experienced its fifth epidemic outbreak since 2018, is being particularly monitored. According to Reutersthe galloping urbanization in this region indeed offers “ideal conditions for the emergence of a virus like Nipah”.
Aware of the threat posed by the virus, local health authorities responded very quickly to the positive case of the infected teenager, declaring the wearing of masks mandatory in the district concerned and a lockdown in certain areas. 330 people who had been in contact with the deceased were placed under observation. According to The Hindustan Times, 13 people at high risk, including 6 who had symptoms that could suggest Nipah virus infection, were tested. All of them gave negative results.
