COMMENT | Pandemic signs still in the sewers

COMMENT | When pig farmers in Malaysia started getting seriously ill with fever and headache in 1998, doctors assumed the cause was Japanese encephalitis.

People in the area tested positive for Japanese encephalitis, which is endemic in Malaysia. But healthcare workers noticed the disease also affected adults who had been vaccinated against it.

Autopsies and symptoms of infected pigs were inconsistent with earlier results. A virologist at the University of Malaya eventually discovered the infection was caused by a new agent, the Nipah virus, which originated in native fruit bats.

Widespread surveillance and culling of pig populations were undertaken, and the last human fatality occurred two months after the discovery of the virus. 

During the Nipah outbreak, the new disease was rapidly characterised and appropriate surveillance and...