In recent days the Indian Government has decided to close schools and universities and has issued health measures (including mandatory masks) in the Kerala region following the death of a 24-year-old man on 9 September 2024 due to infection with Nipah Virus (NiV). This was the second victim of this virus in India in recent times, after the death of a fourteen-year-old last June, again in the Kerala region, which forced the announcement of a period of confinement forty. Viral disease is a zoonosis which is transmitted to humans from bats and pigs and can be transmitted from person to person, causing encephalitis And neurological symptoms. It has been well known in India for some years now and recurs periodically. The phenomenon is worrying because the Nipah virus, although currently widespread only in a certain geographical area (India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines), has a mortality rate ranging from 43% to 100% in humans. For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) has included Nipah in the list of top 10 diseases monitored in the Research and Development Blueprint, an international strategic plan designed to intervene rapidly with effective measures to control these infectious forms to avoid large-scale crises. At the moment No cases of Nipah virus have been recorded in Italy.
What is Nipah Virus and How is it Treated?
Nipah is an RNA virus, a paramyxovirus whose natural host is the fruit bat of the genus Pteropus. These bats, also known as flying foxes, with several species all in the family Pteropodidae, are widespread throughout much of the western Pacific, south-east and south Asia and Madagascar, throughout Africa and in parts of the Middle East. The virus was first isolated in 1998 during an outbreak among pig farmers in Malaysia; infected pigs had mild symptoms, but humans had severe encephalitis. Since then, further outbreaks have been reported in western Bangladesh, India, the Kerala region, as well as Singapore and the Philippines.
NiV infection is a zoonosisthat is, a disease that can be transmitted directly or indirectly from animals to humans, either through the consumption of contaminated food or by direct contact. The virus can be transmitted from bat to human, from human to human and in rarer cases from bat to pig to human. It is considered a emerging disease and, as in the case of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, the spread of the virus is often favored by the loss of natural habitats which push many species of bats to involuntarily come into contact with anthropized environments or with food resources linked to human presence, thus favouring phenomena of spillover (the “species leap”) from animal to human.
At the moment the disease treatment It consists mainly of prevention strategies and treatment of symptoms.
Symptoms and Mortality of NiV
Nipah virus infects the central nervous systemwith the possibility of developing encephalitis And severe neurological manifestationsThe disease can progress to coma within 24-48 hours and has a estimated mortality rate between 43% and 75%with peaks of up to 100%. Timely care and treatment of symptoms can improve survival, but at the moment There is no approved treatment or vaccine for NiV. Several immunological therapies are being tested.
Unfortunately Initial symptoms are non-specific and, therefore, are often misinterpreted or interpreted late. There are no diagnostic tests and latent disease can manifest months or years after the initial infection, complicating epidemiological investigations. In areas endemic for NiV, hundreds of patients each year are admitted to hospitals with a diagnosis of encephalitis but do not have a NiV infection. Much work is currently being done to improve prevention systems and especially early diagnosis to limit not only the course, but also the spread of the disease.
The distribution of the disease
A study conducted by a team of researchers from the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology and published in July 2024 studied Nipah virus infections in humans and animals from 1998 to 2021 to obtain a series of information on the behaviors or areas most at risk for the spread of the virus. They identified two different groups of viral formsone more aggressive in terms of mortality rate in Bangladesh and one less aggressive in Malaysia, both with a common ancestor. In total, since the identification of the virus, 2,000 new cases have been reported 749 cases of human infection divided as follows: 89% of cases involve adults aged 15 to 59, of which 74% are men and 26% are women. In most cases, those infected were livestock farmers, people who were frequently in contact with animals or who had eaten date palm fruits, drunk date palm sap or had climbed date palms. The infection is associated with contact with date palms because they are often frequented by fruit bats.
How the virus is transmitted
Epidemiological studies demonstrate that NiV has several transmission modes: the passage from one species to another is mainly carried out through the consumption of food products contaminated by fruit batsin particular the most common route is human consumption of raw sap from date palm or mango contaminated by fruit bats and subsequent transmission from person to person. Sometimes contaminated fruits are fed to pigs and the latter become vectors of transmission to humans. In Bangladesh, epidemics occur almost annually, most frequently from November to April, coinciding with the consumption of palm sap. In Kerala, India, the transmission routes appear not to be linked to this type of consumption, but to other forms of contamination.
Sourceshttps://www.geopop.it/virus-zika-cose-sintomi-rischi-trasmissione-come-prevenirlo/
