Nipah and mpox expose Asia’s urgent need for stronger disease surveillance
Many Asian countries face barriers in building effective disease surveillance networks, including relying on shrinking external funding
The Nipah virus has one of the highest fatality rates of any known viral disease, typically ranging from 40 to 75 per cent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since 1998, when the first outbreak of the disease was recorded in Malaysia, periodic outbreaks have been recorded almost every year in Bangladesh and India. The dreaded zoonotic disease is transmitted to humans through food contaminated by the excreta or saliva of an infected animal, primarily fruit bats or flying foxes, the natural hosts for the virus. It can be transmitted from person to person through close contact with someone who is infected. There is no known cure.