While a small outbreak of the Nipah virus in India has been recently making international headlines, the immediate risk of the virus spreading in Japan is low, the health ministry says.
On Jan. 26, infections involving two nurses in West Bengal, India, were reported to the World Health Organization. Indian authorities rapidly traced 196 contacts the following day, all of whom tested negative for the virus and have shown no symptoms.
No case has been reported in Japan so far.
Fruit bats are the natural host of the virus, which spreads from infected bats and other animals to humans. It can also be transmitted to people who eat fruit or drink juice laced with the saliva or urine of the infected animals, and between people if someone comes into contact with the bodily fluids of the infected.
If infected with Nipah, people can develop a high fever and muscle pain. In severe cases, it can bring about confusion and brain swelling.
There is no cure or vaccine currently available for the disease caused by the virus. The incubation period ranges from three to 14 days.
In a risk assessment released Thursday, the health ministry said that the risk of the virus spreading widely in Japan is low, given that no bats with the virus have been detected, and that the virus does not spread easily between humans.
The mortality rate of people infected with the Nipah virus is estimated to be 40% to 75%. The health ministry noted that poor surveillance and health care systems in certain parts of the world could have led to an overestimate of how deadly the virus is.
Cases of Nipah virus infections were first reported in Malaysia in 1998 before later emerging in Bangladesh, India, the Philippines and Singapore.
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