Sir, Nipah viral infection is a zoonotic disease caused by Nipah virus (an RNA virus belonging to the Henipavirus genus of the paramyxoviridae family). The virus first came into medical attention in 1998 in Malaysia during a disease outbreak. There are two strains of the virus: The Malaysian strain and the Bangladesh strain. These two strains differ in their infectivity, clinical profile, and genetic makeup.[1]

Fruit bats of Pteropus genus are the reservoirs of this virus. Humans get the infection either directly from bats (as in Bangladesh) or through other infected animals like pigs (as in Malaysia). Human-to-human spread of the infection, through contact with an infected person’s body fluid, was noted in the disease outbreaks in Bangladesh and Siliguri, West Bengal. There has been two outbreaks in India: A major one occurred in 2001 in Siliguri (case fatality rate; CFR 68%) and an isolated incident happened in Nadia, also in West Bengal, in 2007 (CFR 100%).[2] The average CFR was around 40% in the Malaysian outbreaks and nearly 75% in Bangladesh and India. The incubation period of the