Nipah virus .. What does science know about a "terrifying epidemic"?

 Nipah virus. What does science know about a "terrifying epidemic"?

At a time when the world is still confused as it combats the Corona epidemic that has killed 2.2 million people, concerns have been raised recently about the possibility of an outbreak of a deadly virus known as "Nipah".

These health concerns were expressed in a report issued in the Netherlands recently, to warn that the world is not prepared to deal with an outbreak of a new virus, despite the lessons that we are supposed to have learned from "Covid 19".

The executive director of "Access to Medicine", a non-profit organization active in the field of health, said that it is likely that "Nipah" is the next epidemic in our world.

And Jayasri Iyer talked about the possibility of an outbreak of the "Nipah" virus in China, and its lethality may reach more than 75 percent, which means that the next epidemic may be much worse than the Coronavirus.

The health activist described the Nipah virus as an infectious disease that is developing and a source of great concern to the world. Then she added that it might "explode" at any moment, and the danger is that the next epidemic may be an anti-drug infection.
Symptoms and signs

The "Nipah" virus can cause severe respiratory problems in the person, in addition to inflammation and swelling of the brain, while the death rate from the disease ranges between 40 and 75 percent.

Symptoms include muscle pain as well as feeling dizzy, and the patient may go into a coma within 24 to 48 hours.

Scientists expect that the incubation period for the virus will be between 4 and 14 days, but some reports have monitored a longer incubation period in some cases, reaching 45 days, and if the patient manages to recover, he will fully recover, but some recoveries reported long-term effects that accompanied their health.

The data at present suggests that 20 percent of recovered patients suffer chronic neurological consequences
Such as epileptic seizures and even a change in human personality.

On the other hand, the World Health Organization says that only a limited percentage of those who recovered suffer from encephalitis after making a full recovery.

The bat is in the charge circle:-

Fruit bats are a natural incubator for this virus, while previous reports have attributed the emerging coronavirus to the bat known as "the horseshoe bat."

Nipah is one of the 10 infectious diseases included by the World Health Organization in the list of 16 diseases that pose the greatest threat to human health.

The World Health Organization website provides detailed information about this virus, which we rarely heard of before, but it has become an arousing increasing curiosity.

The organization explains that this virus can transmit from animals to humans, and it has set an example with pigs and bats.

She added that this dangerous infection is also transmitted through contaminated food, as it is transmitted from one person to another, in the absence of any vaccine or medicine against this disease at present.

This virus has only spread in a limited way in Asia so far, but its danger lies in causing severe symptoms and causing the death of most carriers of the infection, unlike the less deadly Coronavirus.

Beginnings:-

This virus was first identified in 1999 in pig farms in Malaysia, and no outbreak of the disease has been detected in this Asian country since then.

In 2001, the virus was detected in Bangladesh, and the matter continued to recur almost annually in these countries, and it was also diagnosed in eastern India.

But the risks are not limited to this Asian region, but are present in many countries, because the virus is found in fruit bats that are spread in several countries, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Thailand.

And when the virus was detected in Malaysia for the first time, and Singapore was affected in turn, it was found that most of the human infections were caused by direct contact with animals or exposure to their secretions.

In Bangladesh, the infection was transmitted through palm juice, and the scientists suggested that it was the urine or saliva of these bats that led to the arrival of the virus to humans, and therefore, they are the source of the infection.

Later, the virus was transmitted from one person to another, especially when one of them was exposed to the secretions of the other, and in India, injuries were reported among health sector employees who care for the infected.

In Bangladesh, for example, it was found that nearly half of the total Nipah virus infections between 2001 and 2008 were caused mainly by human-to-human transmission, and this occurred among those who provide medical care.

And in 2018, a report issued by the World Health Organization urged to accelerate research on the "Nipah" virus so that it would not be surprising to our world if it were to spread.

Diagnostic hitch:-

One of the obstacles to dealing with this disease is that the symptoms that appear on the patient are similar to the symptoms of many other diseases, which means that monitoring any outbreaks of this infection will be complicated.

And this virus can be diagnosed by examining the "polymerase chain reaction" in the secretions of the human body, and it can also be detected by antibodies, and this is done by an immune technique linked to enzymes.

There is no medicine for the Nipah virus at present, and there is also no vaccine that protects in advance from this existing health risk, and therefore, what is required, according to experts, is to invest in science and give it enough care to anticipate the risks, so that it does not recur The epidemic nightmare that we lived, perhaps in a more terrible form.