There is no vaccine and no cure for the disease.
The Nipah virus naturally resides in fruit bats across South and Southeast Asia, and can spread to humans through contact with the animals’ bodily fluids. There is no vaccine and no cure.
The virus is listed by the W.H.O. as a high priority for research. Current treatment measures are insufficient, according to Dr. Stuart Nichol, the head of the viral special pathogens branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There’s a market failure for protecting people from this,” said Dr. Steve Luby, an epidemiologist at Stanford University. “It’s not like treating baldness or breast cancer, where wealthy people will pay for your product. There’s no big customer here, no incentive, until it escalates.”