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Australian Scientists Test Nipah Virus Vaccine

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 February 2006, 01:15 CST

SYDNEY -- Australian scientists are testing a vaccine to fight two deadly animal viruses that can infect and kill humans.

Scientists say one of the pathogens, the Nipah virus, is considered a potential biological weapon.

It killed more than 100 people and a million pigs in Malaysia in 1999, while the Hendra virus killed two Australians in 1994.

The Nipah virus is a member of a new genus of viruses related to the mysterious Hendra virus, which killed two people and 16 horses in Australia's northern state of Queensland in 1994-95 and brought the state's thoroughbred racing industry to a standstill.

Both viruses are carried by fruit bats and have alarmed scientists with the ease in which they jump from animals to humans.

Scientists from the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) said on Tuesday that testing of a new vaccine showed promise of preventing both diseases.

"It worked far better than we expected," said Bruce Mungall from the CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory.

"It could be used for both human and animals but we are really focused on saving human lives in risk populations ... such as abattoir workers with the Nipah virus."

Animals immunized with a protein component prepared from the virus were effectively protected against both viruses, Mungall said in a statement.

"Because these viruses are so similar, immunization with the component from either Hendra or Nipah protected against challenge from both. That was a real bonus, indicating that a single vaccine may be effective against both viruses," he said.

The World Health Organization says that although the risk of transmission of the Nipah virus from sick animals to humans is thought to be low, it is a growing health risk to people.

"Although members of this group of viruses have only caused a few focal outbreaks, the biologic property of these viruses to infect a wide range of hosts and to produce a disease causing significant mortality in humans has made this emerging viral infection a public health concern," the WHO says on its Web site (www.who.int).

Mungall said a Nipah outbreak in Bangladesh in the past two years killed 61 of the 97 people infected and probably involved human-to-human transmission.

"There is evidence that the recent Bangladesh outbreaks have involved not only direct bat-to-human transmission, but most likely human-to-human transmission for the first time," he said.

"This dramatically changes the level of concern associated with this virus. There are currently no vaccines available for Hendra virus or Nipah virus and no anti-viral drugs available to treat these types of viruses in general."

Mungall said it would take a further two years of research, in collaboration with U.S. scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health, to develop an effective vaccine.

"We'll now spend time refining the vaccine," said Mungall.

The WHO says the Nipah virus causes influenza-like symptoms, with high fever and muscle pains (myalgia). The disease can progress to inflammation of the brain (encephalitis) with drowsiness, disorientation, convulsions and coma.

Source: REUTERS

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