Nipah Virus-associated Encephalitis Outbreak, Siliguri, India

Abstract

Nipah virus, not previously detected in India, caused an outbreak of febrile encephalitis in West Bengal.

Nipah virus infection: current scenario

“…The symptoms observed in patients during Siliguri outbreak were fever, headache and myalgia, vomiting, altered sensorium, respiratory symptoms (tachypnea to acute respiratory distress) and involuntary movements or convulsions. Patients were normotensive at admission but became hypertensive before death [5]. The case fatality in clinical cases was around 40 % in the Malaysian outbreaks but in Bangladesh and India, it was on as average 75 % (Table 1).…”

“…The detailed account of the first NiV outbreak in India (Siliguri, West Bengal) during 2001 has been published in two reports [5,36]. An outbreak of acute encephalitis occurred in Siliguri (West Bengal) town of India between January 31 and February 23,2001.…”

“…Later, the clinical material obtained during the Siliguri outbreak was retrospectively analyzed for evidence of NiV infection [97]. Analysis of the limited sequence data suggested that the NiV strains associated with the outbreak were more closely related to NiV isolated in Bangladesh than to NiV isolated in Malaysia [5].…”

“…Several outbreaks of NiV have been reported in human beings in Bangladesh from 2001 to 2013 [43,97] and two outbreaks in India [1,5], but none had showed any involvement of pigs. Investigation of different Nipah outbreaks in Bangladesh have identified different routes of transmission including climbing trees (probably contaminated with infected date palm sap), contact with sick persons, and contact with sick animals [39,[44][45][46]68].…”

“…In India, in a bat sample survey, NiV RNA was detected in a liver homogenate of P. giganteus captured in Myanaguri, West Bengal [100] (Figs. 1, 2, 3) In Siliguri, India, transmission of the virus was also reported within a health-care setting, where 75 % of cases occurred among hospital staff or visitors [5]. Nipah cases tend to occur in a cluster or as an outbreak, although 18 % of cases in Bangladesh were isolated.…”