Nipah virus: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)- National Institute of Virology carried out a cross-sectional survey to study Nipah Virus (NiV) and its prevalence in the country’s bats. During the survey, samples of some species of bats located in a cave in Maharashtra’s Mahabaleshwar have been picked up, in which antibodies against NiV are present, according to a report in IE. The development is considerable due to the fact NiV has been incorporated in the priority list of prime 10 pathogens identified by the WHO. India has till now seen 4 diverse outbreaks of NiV.
While the 1st instance of NiV infection had been reported in West Bengal’s Siliguri in 2001, the second episode was reported from the very same state’s Nadia in 2007. The report added that NiV antibodies have been present in Assam’s Dubri district and in West Bengal’s Cooch Behar, each of which are situated close to India’s border with Bangladesh. A third outbreak of the virus in 2018 in Kerala’s Kozhikode was reported in which 18 persons died. Another wave of the virus also struck Kerala in 2019 as effectively.
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A study carried out in 2018 had stated that lots of nations in South East Asia, such as some states in India as effectively, could be identified as hotspots for the illness brought on by Nipah Virus.
In India, significant fruit-consuming bats named Pteropus medius bats are believed to be the result in for the virus, as each the RNA of NiV as effectively as its antibodies have been located to be present in the samples collected from these bats for the duration of outbreaks. However, it is vital to note that research on other bat species becoming possible reservoirs of the virus have not been carried out extensively in India.
The study, named “Detection of possible Nipah virus infection in Rousettus leschenaultii and Pipistrellus Pipistrellus bats in Maharashtra, India”, has been published in Journal of Infection and Public Health. For this, two species of bats, viz “Rousettus leschenaultii” which are medium-sized fruit-consuming bats and “Pipistrellus pipistrellus” which are tiny insectivorous bats, have been trapped from a Mahabaleshwar cave in March last year and then anaesthetised onsite. Following this, blood, rectal and throat swab samples have been collected from these bats.
The group located the presence of NiV RNA to be present in a quantity of samples, and the very same was the case for antibodies. However, one bat of every of the two species was located to have each the RNA and the antibodies, the report added, citing NIV scientist Dr Pragya Yadav as saying that this marked the 1st demonstration of the possibility of NiV infection in R leschenaultii bats in the nation.
Researchers have now stated that this discovering warrants a additional study into this aspect as no conclusion can be reached from the existing survey thinking about the modest screening sample of bats.