{"id":11556,"date":"2026-02-25T20:59:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11556"},"modified":"2026-02-25T20:59:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:59:41","slug":"nipah-virus-outbreak-has-asia-on-high-alert-amid-deaths-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/02\/25\/nipah-virus-outbreak-has-asia-on-high-alert-amid-deaths-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Nipah Virus Outbreak Has Asia on High Alert Amid Deaths in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/nipah-virus-outbreak-has-asia-on-high-alert-amid-deaths-in-india\">Science Alert<\/a> An outbreak of the deadly Nipah&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/virus\">virus<\/a>&nbsp;in India has put many countries in Asia on high alert, given the fatality rate in humans can be between&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/nipah-virus#:%7E:text=Nipah%20virus%20usually%20transmits%20from,supportive%20care%20can%20improve%20survival.\">40% and 75%<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, have introduced new&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-01-29\/what-do-we-know-about-india-nipah-virus-outbreak\/106280738\">screening and testing measures<\/a>, after at least&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Health\/nipah-virus-amid-cases-detected-india\/story?id=129667635\">two people<\/a>&nbsp;died of Nipah virus in the Indian state of West Bengal this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what is Nipah virus, and how concerned should we be? Like Hendra virus, Nipah is in a category of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/virus\">viruses<\/a>&nbsp;called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/5-virus-families-that-could-cause-the-next-pandemic-according-to-the-experts-189622\">henipaviruses<\/a>. It is zoonotic, meaning it can spread from animals to humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I explained in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/5-virus-families-that-could-cause-the-next-pandemic-according-to-the-experts-189622\">previous Conversation article<\/a>, outbreaks happen in Asia from time to time. The first outbreak was reported in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/nipah-virus\">1998<\/a>&nbsp;in Malaysia.<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"p TNVs oNDUp f\"><!-- p TNVs oNDUp f --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science Alert An outbreak of the deadly Nipah&nbsp;virus&nbsp;in India has put many countries in Asia on high alert, given the fatality rate in humans can be between&nbsp;40% and 75%. Several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, have introduced new&nbsp;screening and testing measures, after at least&nbsp;two people&nbsp;died of Nipah virus in the Indian state of West [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nipah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11557,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11556\/revisions\/11557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}