Name: What to know about Nipah virus after cases emerge in India
Uploaded: 2026-01-30T02:49:00.000Z
Duration: 2 min 56 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Thailand is among several Asian nations that have stepped up airport health screenings after India reported two cases of the deadly Nipah virus.

But what is Nipah and how concerned should people be?

Adverbs of manner

Nipah is a rare viral infection that comes mainly from fruit bats.

It was first identified in Malaysia in the late 90s.

Here's Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at Norwich Medical School in Britain.

Most transmission events are because of a contact either with an infected animal or with something that has been contaminated by fruit bats.

It can also spread from person to person, typically after close contact between the sick and their caregivers, though experts say that does not happen easily.

Nipah can cause severe illness and can be deadly.

The death rate varies from outbreak to outbreak, but

is of the order of about 45 to 75% mortality rate, though Hunter points out that is based on identified infections.

He says some people get no symptoms at all and may not be identified as infected.

This means Nipah's actual death rate is likely to be lower.

One concern is that the infection has an incubation period of one to two weeks, and

what this means is that it's actually very difficult to control.

At airports, you've got a disease that's got two weeks incubation period for the first two weeks after somebody's carrying the infection.

For those who do get symptoms, Hunter says the early signs can be non specific, like fever and headaches.

In severe cases, Nipah can cause encephalitis, which is inflammation of the brain.

You have a high fever, you have very severe headaches, and

you can have photophobia where the light hurts your eyes, and

that is often associated with cases that ultimately die.

Reuters global health correspondent Jennifer Rigby says there is no need to worry too much.

There's been outbreaks almost every year in Bangladesh, small outbreaks because it doesn't spread easily from person to person.

She says the WHO sees it as a priority pathogen.

But the virus has not yet shown signs of becoming more transmissible among humans or spreading easily worldwide.

Rigby also says a prevention may be on its way.

There is a number of groups working on a vaccine, notably the Oxford University scientists who developed one of the COVID vaccines.

They have a Nipah virus vaccine and that's actually started human trials in Bangladesh just last year.

In the meantime, experts say those in high risk areas should be careful.

Peel fruit before eating and don't drink raw juice, as it hasn't been pasteurized to kill viruses.