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Several Asian countries are implementing COVID-19-style health checks after two cases of a rare, deadly virus were confirmed in India, according to ABC News.
The Nipah virus carries a high fatality rate, estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) at 40%-75%. However, medical commentator John Campbell, Ph.D., said it poses little danger globally.
“Yes, it is a risk. And no, I don’t think it is much of a risk at the moment,” he said.
The virus’s greatest threat comes from human interference, according to Campbell.
“The reason I’m saying yes, it is a potential risk, is it could be weaponized. It could be messed around with in laboratories. Gain-of-function research could be carried out on it, it would leak, and then, of course, it would be a significant risk,” he said.
India’s health authorities deployed an outbreak response team in January after one man and one woman, both 25-year-old nurses in the Indian state of West Bengal, were diagnosed with the virus, ABC News reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it is “monitoring” the situation.
Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore are among the countries that ramped up airport screening efforts, incorporating thermal scanners, travel history checks and health declarations, according to the Hindustan Times.
Reuters reported that the screenings are more for public “reassurance” than to stop the virus from spreading.
No additional cases have been detected, and the WHO said the risk remains “low” at the national, regional and global levels.
Fruit bats, also known as flying foxes, are the natural carriers of the Nipah virus. Other animals — including horses, dogs, cats and pigs — have become infected and, in some cases, passed the virus to humans, Campbell said.
The virus most commonly spreads through contaminated food or direct contact. It can also pass from person to person through close contact with an infected individual or exposure to their bodily fluids.
The virus has never been identified in Western countries, and there is currently no drug treatment or vaccine.
Deadly virus only a threat ‘if people are messing around’ with it in labs
The WHO has called the Nipah virus a “priority pathogen” due to its epidemic potential.
However, Piero Olliaro, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Poverty-Related Infectious Diseases at the University of Oxford, said in Science Media Centre that “the virus does not transmit easily between people, and sustained community-wide spread has not been observed, resulting in outbreaks that are typically small and localized.”
“Based on what we currently know, there is a very low likelihood that this outbreak will cause a large international epidemic,” Olliaro added.
Campbell said researchers at Boston University suspect that person-to-person transmission through inhalation likely occurs via droplets. “It’s not airborne in the way that influenza or SARS coronavirus 2 was,” he said.
The two patients in India first developed symptoms in December 2025 and were hospitalized in January, according to the WHO. One patient is showing signs of improvement, while the other remains in critical care.
Authorities have since tested more than 190 people who had contact with the patients. All tested negative.
Campbell said his findings support the view that the virus spreads slowly. Antibodies for the virus have been found in bats across regions much broader than the reported cases of the disease would suggest, he said.
That means transmission of the disease “is hopefully fairly rare,” he said.
Campbell warned that the biggest threat to the public would come from lab-based human interference with the virus, not from natural spread.
“If people are messing around with this in the laboratory to increase its transmissibility, then it’s got massive pandemic potential,” he said.
The warning echoes debates over COVID-19, which followed years of gain-of-function coronavirus research abroad. The pandemic demonstrated how quickly engineered viruses can spread, and how governments can impose sweeping public health measures with limited input from the public.
“This just shows the risk of gain-of-function research, and it could well be being carried out. It probably is somewhere,” Campbell said. “There’s no limit to the arrogance of human beings who think they contain it but then find it leaks.”
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No documented cases of Nipah virus in North America, UK, Australia
The Nipah virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak among pig farmers in Malaysia. It caused roughly 300 human cases and more than 100 deaths, according to Discover magazine. Authorities slaughtered millions of pigs to contain the spread.
Outbreaks have occurred primarily in rural or semi-rural regions of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and parts of Southeast Asia. Since 2001, India has reported relatively few infection cases each year, with the exceptions of 2001, which saw 66 cases, and 2018, which saw 18 cases, the WHO said.
The virus has never been detected in the U.S., the U.K., Australia or elsewhere in North America.
Symptoms typically appear 4-21 days after exposure and include fever, respiratory problems, pneumonia and neurological complications such as encephalitis or meningitis, Campbell said. Survivors may face lasting neurological damage, seizures or personality changes. In rare cases, the virus can reactivate months or even years later.
Watch John Campbell discuss the Nipah virus here:
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