The whole world is yet to end the ongoing battle with the COVID-19 pandemic, but scientists are already warning the public of the possible next global health crisis that may target us, and it's even deadlier than what we're facing now.
The Nipah virus comes from fruit bats.
Nipah Virus Can Trigger the Next Pandemic
In a report by The Sun, experts have said that a rising number of cases of the Nipah virus disease might trigger another global outbreak, and they are calling it "The Big One."
The Nipah virus was first discovered in 1999 in Malaysia, which comes from fruit bats and could be transferred from animals to humans, causing severe brain swelling, vomiting, seizures, to acute respiratory infection, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Worst of all, the virus has a 40% to 75% fatality rate, making it deadlier than COVID-19.
Because of its potential to trigger an epidemic, the WHO has made it one of the 16 pathogens as a top priority for research and development, but if there happens to be an outbreak of some sort, there is no known treatment or vaccine for it yet, making it incredibly hard to tackle.
Furthermore, the virus has a long incubation period of 45 days, so it could spread to communities before someone falls ill and could be tested for it.
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Testing Kits are Currently in Production
As for testing kits, the production of tools that could detect the Nipah virus is now underway.
"Nipah virus testing kits are produced addressing, the unexpected occurrences of the infection, together with the requirement to make them accessible promptly in necessitated regions where the infection was seen increasing for prompt diagnosis of the virus," said Facts.MR, a global research firm, as per BioSpace.
Moreover, scientists are worried about the high rate of mutation of the Nipah virus, meaning that it could adapt to human infections and could spread more rapidly across the countries in South East Asia.
"Nipah is one of the viruses that could absolutely be the cause of a new pandemic. Several things about Nipah are very concerning," Dr. Rebecca Dutch told the UK news outlet, the chair of the University of Kentucky's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry and a leader in virus studies.
How Humans Could Catch the Infection
Pigs have been known to catch the deadly Nipah virus after they were exposed to infected mangoes, and through them, it's possible to spread the disease to humans.
Previously, there was a Nipah virus outbreak in both Bangladesh and India with experts linking the incident with infected date palm juice, according to BBC.
There were 11 different outbreaks in Bangladesh from 2001 to 2011 and out of the 196 people that were detected to have the virus, 150 of them succumbed to the disease.
As per the report, fruit bats that carried the virus would typically fly to the date palm plantation to lap up the juice from the trees and as they feasted, they would urinate on the collection pot, infecting the juice that would be served to innocent local people the next day.
Experts warn that if we don't take this seriously, the COVID-19 pandemic that has already killed 2.5 million people may only be the beginning.
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Written by: Nhx Tingson
