Abstract
During January and February 2001, an outbreak of febrile illness associated with altered sensorium was observed in Siliguri, West Bengal, India. Laboratory investigations at the time of the outbreak did not identify an infectious agent. Because Siliguri is in close proximity to Bangladesh, where outbreaks of Nipah virus (NiV) infection were recently described, clinical material obtained during the Siliguri outbreak was retrospectively analyzed for evidence of NiV infection. NiV-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG antibodies were detected in 9 of 18 patients. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays detected RNA from NiV in urine samples from 5 patients. Sequence analysis confirmed that the PCR products were derived from NiV RNA and suggested that the NiV from Siliguri was more closely related to NiV isolates from Bangladesh than to NiV isolates from Malaysia. NiV infection has not been previously detected in India.
Highlights
During January and February 2001, an outbreak of febrile illness associated with altered sensorium was observed in Siliguri, West Bengal, India
Evidence of Nipah virus (NiV) infection was detected in these bats in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Cambodia [7,8,9,10]
In the Malaysian outbreak, NiV was introduced into the pig population, and most of the human cases resulted from exposure to ill pigs [2]
Summary
During January and February 2001, an outbreak of febrile illness associated with altered sensorium was observed in Siliguri, West Bengal, India. Evidence of NiV infection was detected in these bats in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Cambodia [7,8,9,10]. An intermediate animal host was not identified during the Bangladesh outbreaks, which suggests that the virus was transmitted either directly or indirectly from infected bats to humans. Nipah virus (NiV), a recently emergent, zoonotic paramyxovirus [2], was implicated as the cause of a highly fatal (case-fatality ratio 38%–75%), febrile human encephalitis in Malaysia and Singapore in 1999 [1] and in Bangladesh during the winters of 2001, 2003, and 2004 [3,4,5,6]. The natural reservoir of NiV is presumed to be fruit
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