Nipah airport screenings are for reassurance, not scientific step to stop spread, experts say

By Jennifer Rigby

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Airport screenings for Nipah virus, which have been stepped up across Asia this week after two cases were identified in India, are more about reassurance than science, several leading experts said on Friday.

Countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan put in place temperature screenings at airports this week after India announced that two cases of the deadly Nipah virus had been found in West Bengal.

The countries’ health ministries described the measures as precautionary steps for a dangerous disease.

Nipah is an infection that spreads mainly through products contaminated by infected bats, such as fruit. It can be fatal in up to 75% of cases, but it does not spread easily between people.

The WHO said on Friday that it did not currently recommend airport screening and the risk of the virus spreading from India was low.

“Based on what we currently know, there is a very low likelihood that this outbreak will cause a large international epidemic,” said Dr Md Zakiul Hassan, a Nipah specialist at icddr,b, a global health research institute in Bangladesh, where Nipah cases are reported almost every year.

Piero Olliaro, professor of poverty-related disease at the University of Oxford, said airport screenings for such a rare disease were likely to be ineffective.

“Countries sometimes do these things just to show them flexing the muscles… telling their people that they’re doing something to protect them,” he said.

Olliaro and other public health experts said airport temperature screenings rarely worked to stop the spread of disease. During COVID-19, for example, they missed the majority of cases, studies have shown.

Also, many illnesses can cause a fever, and follow-up testing for a rare disease like Nipah is time-consuming, the experts added. Instead, the world’s focus on Nipah would be better directed at better understanding the virus where it currently spreads, and protecting those at risk from it with new vaccines and treatments.

“There are people suffering from this disease, and they deserve attention,” said Olliaro, adding that this would also help get ahead of any future pandemic risk, if the virus changes and becomes more of an international problem.   

“Preparedness means we have the tools now, and we are not trying to develop the tools when the horse has left the stable,” he said.   

(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)