Health officials in India have started to monitor a small outbreak of the Nipah virus, which has already killed one 12-year-old boy.
- Hundreds of people have gone into quarantine because of the virus, according to Newsweek.
What is the Nipah virus?
The Nipah virus is a zoonotic virus that can cause mild and severe symptoms like coughing, fever and more.
- Death reportedly occurs in 40% to 75% of all cases of the Nipah virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
How fast can the Nipah virus spread?
A recent study published by Bangladeshi researchers found that the Nipah virus has a reproductive number (R-value) of 0.48, at least according to previous Nipah virus outbreaks.
- “A value less than one is indicative of the fact that less than one person will get infected by a previously infected person. In such circumstances, the risk for an extensive outbreak gets mitigated quickly,” according to Weather.com.
The r-value is often used to determine the spread of a virus. Anything above 1.0 suggests that at least one person can be infected by another infected person. The higher the R-value, the higher the virus can spread.
- For example, the flu has an R-value of around two, suggesting that anyone who gets the flu will pass it on to at least two people on average, according to NPR.
COVID-19 protocols will make it harder for the Nipah virus to spread, too, since people are already wearing masks and socially distancing from each other.
The R-value for COVID-19 has shifted throughout the pandemic. At one stage, it was under 1.0 in the U.K. However, the delta variant is believed to spread to somewhere between five to nine people, as I wrote for the Deseret News. That would put the R-value at around 5.0 to 9.0, if true.