JAKARTA - Health experts are currently wary of the emergence of the Nipah virus (NiV). NiV is a zoonotic virus that can be transmitted from animals - such as pigs and bats - to humans. Experts fear this virus could become a new pandemic after COVID-19.
People who get infected with the Nipah virus can experience a variety of asymptomatic diseases to acute respiratory distress and fatal encephalitis. Quoted by VOI from WHO, Thursday, January 28, the Nipah virus can be transmitted through food contaminated with bat bites which are then consumed by humans.
In addition, the spread of the Nipah virus is also thought to have originated from sick pigs after eating the remaining fruit that had been bitten by fruit bats from the pteropodidae family. Based on WHO reports, the plague of Nipah first appeared in Malaysia in 1999.
At that time, many infections were found caused by direct human contact with sick pigs without using protection. It is known, the incubation period of Nipah virus in pigs lasts for four to 14 days.
The pigs which are infected with the virus do not have any symptoms. Not only that. The WHO also noted findings on dates or date juice contaminated with bat urine or saliva. Contaminated fruit is the most likely source of infection to spread to humans.
The Nipah virus, which is a zoonotic virus, can also infect other pets, such as horses, sheep, goats, cats, and dogs.
Efforts to prevent the Nipah virus can be done by cleaning the fruit and boiling the juice of dates until it is ripe, to avoid contamination of saliva and urine from bats.
Apart from being transmitted through animals, the Nipah virus can also spread from human to human.
According to WHO records, during the outbreak of this virus in Bangladesh and India, the Nipah virus was also reported to have spread through close human-to-human contact.
Until now, researchers are working hard so that the Nipah virus does not become the next pandemic after the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, spreads very rapidly throughout the world.
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