Nipah virus, a paramyxovirus that emerges from wildlife hosts and represent a threat to human health

The Nipah virus (NiV) belongs to the family Paramyxoviridae, genus Henipavirus and has recently been recognized as causing serious diseases with high mortality rates in humans. In 1999, NiV was identified in Malaysia during an outbreak of encephalitis and respiratory diseases in pigs and in people responsible for the care of these animals (1,2). The name of the virus came from the village of Kampung Sungai Nipah (Malaysia) where a group of pigs with encephalitis became ill (2). Given the relationship of NiV with the Hendra virus, to investigate the reservoirs of the NiV, macrochiroptera bats of the genus Pteropus were selected, in which the NiV was afterward identified (1). In the outbreak of 1999, the NiV virus caused mild disease in pigs and around 300 human cases were reported, exceeding 100 deaths (1,2). To stop the outbreak, more than one million pigs were slaughtered, which caused a huge commercial loss for Malaysia (2). Since then, no cases have been reported in pigs or humans in that Asian country.