Episode 140 Nipah virus: Of Fruit and Bats

What does it take to make the WHO’s list of high priority pathogens of pandemic potential? Ask Nipah virus. Extremely deadly with a wide host range and no effective treatments or vaccine (yet), Nipah virus has certainly earned its place on this list. In this episode, we explore where this virus came from, how it can make us so very sick, and the 1998 outbreak in peninsular Malaysia that put Nipah virus on the map. But we don’t stop there! We bring on expert guest, Dr. Clifton McKee, research associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to guide us through the ecological factors that drive Nipah virus spillover events and outbreaks. With Dr. McKee’s help, we explore what a One Health approach to Nipah virus looks like and how it integrates study across animals, humans, and the environment to help predict and control when and where this virus might spill over. Tune in to learn more about this deadly virus that inspired the 2011 movie Contagion.

HistoryBiology
Chua, Kaw Bing. “Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia.” Journal of Clinical Virology 26.3 (2003): 265-275.Ang, B.S., Lim, T.C. and Wang, L., 2018. Nipah virus infection. Journal of clinical microbiology, 56(6), pp.10-1128.
Chua, Kaw Bing. “The discovery of Nipah virus: A personal account.” Neurol Asia 9 (2004): 59-63.Devnath, P., Wajed, S., Das, R.C., Kar, S., Islam, I. and Al Masud, H.A., 2022. The pathogenesis of Nipah virus: A review. Microbial Pathogenesis, 170, p.105693.
Chua, Kaw Bing. “Introduction: Nipah virus—discovery and origin.” Henipavirus: Ecology, Molecular Virology, and Pathogenesis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012. 1-9.Gurley, E.S., Spiropoulou, C.F. and De Wit, E., 2020. Twenty years of Nipah virus research: where do we go from here?. The Journal of infectious diseases, 221(Supplement_4), pp.S359-S362.
Chua, Kaw Bing, et al. “Fatal encephalitis due to Nipah virus among pig-farmers in Malaysia.” The Lancet 354.9186 (1999): 1257-1259.Nikolay, B., Salje, H., Hossain, M.J., Khan, A.D., Sazzad, H.M., Rahman, M., Daszak, P., Ströher, U., Pulliam, J.R., Kilpatrick, A.M. and Nichol, S.T., 2019. Transmission of Nipah virus—14 years of investigations in Bangladesh. New England Journal of Medicine, 380(19), pp.1804-1814.
Chua, K. B., et al. “Nipah virus: a recently emergent deadly paramyxovirus.” Science 288.5470 (2000): 1432-1435.Epstein, J.H., Anthony, S.J., Islam, A., Kilpatrick, A.M., Ali Khan, S., Balkey, M.D., Ross, N., Smith, I., Zambrana-Torrelio, C., Tao, Y. and Islam, A., 2020. Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(46), pp.29190-29201.
Daszak, Peter, et al. “Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding disease emergence: the past, present, and future drivers of Nipah virus emergence.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110.supplement_1 (2013): 3681-3688.Hughes, J.M., Wilson, M.E., Luby, S.P., Gurley, E.S. and Hossain, M.J., 2009. Transmission of human infection with Nipah virus. Clinical infectious diseases, 49(11), pp.1743-1748.
Epstein, Jonathan H., et al. “Nipah virus: impact, origins, and causes of emergence.” Current infectious disease reports 8.1 (2006): 59-65.Hossain, M.J., Gurley, E.S., Montgomery, J.M., Bell, M., Carroll, D.S., Hsu, V.P., Formenty, P., Croisier, A., Bertherat, E., Faiz, M.A. and Azad, A.K., 2008. Clinical presentation of nipah virus infection in Bangladesh. Clinical infectious diseases, 46(7), pp.977-984.
Epstein, Jonathan H., et al. “Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117.46 (2020): 29190-29201.Aditi and Shariff M. 2019. Nipah virus infection: A review. Epidemiology and Infection 147, e95, 1–6. https://doi.org/ 10.1017/S0950268819000086
Hauser, Naomi, et al. “Evolution of Nipah virus infection: past, present, and future considerations.” Tropical medicine and infectious disease 6.1 (2021): 24.Bruno, L., Nappo, M.A., Ferrari, L., Di Lecce, R., Guarnieri, C., Cantoni, A.M. and Corradi, A., 2022. Nipah virus disease: epidemiological, clinical, diagnostic and legislative aspects of this unpredictable emerging zoonosis. Animals, 13(1), p.159.
Ksiazek, Thomas G., Paul A. Rota, and Pierre E. Rollin. “A review of Nipah and Hendra viruses with an historical aside.” Virus research 162.1-2 (2011): 173-183.McKee, C.D., Islam, A., Rahman, M.Z., Khan, S.U., Rahman, M., Satter, S.M., Islam, A., Yinda, C.K., Epstein, J.H., Daszak, P. and Munster, V.J., 2022. Nipah virus detection at bat roosts after spillover events, Bangladesh, 2012–2019. Emerging infectious diseases, 28(7), p.1384.
Lo Presti, Alessandra, et al. “Origin and evolution of Nipah virus.” Journal of Medical Virology 88.3 (2016): 380-388.McKee, C.D., Islam, A., Luby, S.P., Salje, H., Hudson, P.J., Plowright, R.K. and Gurley, E.S., 2021. The ecology of Nipah virus in Bangladesh: a nexus of land-use change and opportunistic feeding behavior in bats. Viruses, 13(2), p.169.
Luby, Stephen P. “The pandemic potential of Nipah virus.” Antiviral research 100.1 (2013): 38-43.Walpita, P., Barr, J., Sherman, M., Basler, C.F. and Wang, L., 2011. Vaccine potential of Nipah virus-like particles. PloS one, 6(4), p.e18437.
McKee, Clifton D., et al. “The ecology of Nipah virus in Bangladesh: a nexus of land-use change and opportunistic feeding behavior in bats.” Viruses 13.2 (2021): 169.Yoneda, M., Georges-Courbot, M.C., Ikeda, F., Ishii, M., Nagata, N., Jacquot, F., Raoul, H., Sato, H. and Kai, C., 2013. Recombinant measles virus vaccine expressing the Nipah virus glycoprotein protects against lethal Nipah virus challenge. PloS one, 8(3), p.e58414.
Nor, Mohd, C. H. Gan, and B. L. Ong. “Nipah virus infection of pigs in peninsular Malaysia.” Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics) 19.1 (2000): 160-165.Amaya, M. and Broder, C.C., 2020. Vaccines to emerging viruses: Nipah and Hendra. Annual review of virology, 7, pp.447-473.
Soman Pillai, Vinod, Gayathri Krishna, and Mohanan Valiya Veettil. “Nipah virus: past outbreaks and future containment.” Viruses 12.4 (2020): 465.Dose Escalation, Open-Label Clinical Trial to Evaluate Safety, Tolerability and Immunogenicity of a Nipah Virus (NiV) mRNA Vaccine, mRNA-1215, in Healthy Adults Sponsored by NIAID. Last updated 2024-03-22https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05398796
Wong, Kum Thong, et al. “Nipah virus infection, an emerging paramyxoviral zoonosis.” Springer Seminars in Immunopathology. Vol. 24. Springer-Verlag, 2002.Oxford Vaccine Group, 11Jan 2024 “First in-human vaccine trial for Nipah virus” https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/first-in-human-vaccine-trial-for-nipah-virus 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZjIyQvKt8Q

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, you won’t pay a penny more, but we’ll get a small commission which helps us keep things running. Thanks!