HYDERABAD: 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 implemented temperature screenings at airports this week after India announced that two cases of the deadly Nipah virus had been identified in West Bengal.
The countries’ health ministries described the measures as precautionary steps to address a dangerous disease.
BACKGROUND
Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam are among the Asian countries that tightened airport screening this week after India reported new infections.
Nipah is an infection that spreads mainly through products contaminated by infected bats, such as fruit. It can be fatal in up to 75 percent 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. Zakiul Hassan, a Nipah specialist at 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.
Additionally, many illnesses can cause fever, and follow-up testing for a rare disease such as Nipah is time-consuming, the experts added. Instead, the world’s focus on Nipah would be better directed toward improving understanding of the virus’s current spread and protecting those at risk 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.
A WHO official in Geneva said that the risk of the spread of the Nipah virus is low, noting that none of the more than 190 contacts of the two people infected in India had tested positive or developed symptoms of the disease.
“The risk on a national, regional and global level is considered low,” Anais Legand, an official with WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, told a Geneva press briefing, saying that neither person traveled while symptomatic.
Both of the infected patients are hospitalized and are alive, she added, with one showing signs of improvement.
