By David Bell at Brownstone dot org.

A large outbreak of hysteria occurred in the media over the past week, regarding a small Nipah virus outbreak in eastern India. 'Hysteria' is the correct word in terms of proportionality. It is not, unfortunately, the right word in terms of intent. Ten years ago this episode of Nipah virus disease would barely have rated a mention internationally, and certainly not stimulated airport screening and travel warnings – there have been many larger outbreaks of Nipah virus than this one, which did not.

The change over recent years is not that people have lost their minds. It relates to the adoption of the fear-panic-profit model that has entrenched itself in international public health. Tens of billions in annual funding are on the table, and they depend – with the thousands of salaries and exorbitant Pharma profits tied to the pandemic industry – on the maintenance of a constant sense of imminent threat.

The World Health Organization reports two cases from this Nipah outbreak, which is less than usual. As is common, they involve health service personnel who are often infected by the virus before the diagnosis is clear in the patients they care for. Nipah virus infection historically has a high mortality rate among those infected, and each death is a tragedy, especially in those who are infected through caring for others. The deliberate hysteria and fear-mongering these cases are being used to promote will kill lots more, because it diverts resources from programs aimed at far worse health problems. But using small recurrent outbreaks to promote fear is a business case that is too attractive to too many. This Nipah outbreak is simply its latest iteration.

What Is Nipah Virus Disease?

An outbreak of encephalitis (brain inflammation) occurred in a semi-rural area of Malaysia in 1998. It was quite severe, with almost half of the early cases dying. Initially assumed to be an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis (a more common mosquito-borne disease), it was noted that early cases were associated with illness in nearby pigs. The initial outbreak was on a farm where pigs and an orchard were in close proximity.

Unusual characteristics noted in this 1998 outbreak raised questions as to whether this was a new disease. There is an unofficial back story regarding what happened next, including a vial of blood from an infected case carried through customs and ending up at the CDC in the United States. With the help of (what were then) new techniques for distinguishing genetic sequences, it was established that a previously undetected virus was involved.

This outbreak became the first recorded outbreak of Nipah virus, named after Sungai Nipah (the Nipah river) in peninsular Malaysia. The virus is now known to be endemic in various bat species that range across much of Asia and Africa. In the case of the Malaysian outbreak, it spread from fruit bats attracted to an orchard, to the pigs that were kept alongside the fruit trees they fed on, to the humans who looked after the pigs. This remains one of the worst recorded outbreaks in history, with 105 deaths from 265 recorded cases by May 1999. Malaysia took various steps after this, initially killing a lot of pigs, but also changing farming practices. There has not been an outbreak recorded there since.

Why New Viruses Are Not Necessarily New

Since the Malaysian episode, recurrent outbreaks have been recorded, particularly in the Northeast and Southwest of the Indian subcontinent. These have been small outbreaks, less than 110 deaths in the worst, with well under 1,000 people recorded ever dying from Nipah virus globally. However, it is important to realize that this number will not reflect true Nipah virus mortality. The difference between now and the years before 1998 is almost certainly not that a new virus has emerged, but that we have simply developed the means to detect it. We simply could not distinguish Nipah virus outbreaks from other causes of encephalit...