Should We Be Worried About This NIPAH Outbreak?

Recently we have seen the return of masking and other ‘safety protocols’ in certain hospitals across Canada. When asking why this has been deemed necessary, one of the reasons was precautions against the possible NIPAH outbreak, which of course is enough to send most people back into a PTSD-induced panic.

But is this NIPAH outbreak really something we should be worried about?

Having been down this road of ‘what will the next pandemic be’, in which we have considered Bird Flu, Ebola, Measles, NIPAH and even the Plague, it seems like deja vu. And always our answer has been the same – No, it is unlikely to be a realistic threat to public health here in North America.

The UK’s Dr. John Campbell did a feature video on this issue earlier this week (see the YouTube link below) in which he also asked, “Should we be worried about it? Is it coming to Western countries? And the answer to this question is yes, it is a risk. And no, I don’t think it is much of a risk at the moment.

          Actually the reason I’m saying yes it is a potential risk is it could be weaponized, it could be messed around within laboratories doing gain of function research and it would leak and then, of course, it would be a significant risk…

          So do I think we’re going to see cases of NIPAH virus spreading person-to-person in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom? No. I don’t, given the information we have at the moment. If you’re worried about NIPAH virus spreading in the west, I would stop worrying at least for the time being until new information comes to light.”

While the World Health Organization has said it has epidemic potential, so far only two cases of NIPAH virus have been confirmed in the Indian state of West Bengal where the rare disease is endemic. However, according to ABC this prompted several Asian countries including Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore to implement Covid-19-style health checks and increase airport health screenings, which triggered the media frenzy in the West.

The Nipah virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak among pig farmers in Malaysia. It affected roughly 300 humans and caused more than 100 deaths, according to Discover magazine. Symptoms typically appear 4-21 days after exposure and include fever, respiratory problems, pneumonia and neurological complications such as encephalitis or meningitis. Back in 1998 authorities slaughtered millions of pigs to contain the spread.

Since being identified in 1998, outbreaks have occurred primarily in rural or semi-rural regions of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and parts of Southeast Asia. After this first outbreak the degree of contagion seems to have waned and by 2002 India had reported relatively few infection cases each year. The virus has never been detected in Canada, the United States, the UK or Australia.

So, once again, this is not something we should be too concerned about at this stage.

Sources for this article include:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd2nK61WsXE&t=5s

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nipah-virus-low-risk-gain-of-function-research-john-campbell