Nipah virus dynamics in bats and implications for spillover to humans
Jonathan H. Epstein, Simon J. Anthony, Ariful Islam, A. Marm Kilpatrick, Shahneaz Ali Khan, Maria Balkey, Noam Ross, Ina Smith, Carlos Zambrana‐Torrelio, Yun Tao, Ausraful Islam, P. Lan Quan, Kevin J. Olival, Salah Uddin Khan, Emily S. Gurley, Masoumi Hossein, Hume Field, Mark D. Fielder, Thomas Briese, Mahmudur Rahman, Christopher C. Broder, Gary Crameri, Lin‐Fa Wang, Stephen P. Luby, W. Ian Lipkin, Peter Daszak
Abstract
Significance Nipah virus (NiV) is a zoonotic virus and World Health Organization (WHO) priority pathogen that causes near-annual outbreaks in Bangladesh and India with >75% mortality. This work advances our understanding of transmission of NiV in its natural bat reservoir by analyzing data from a 6-y multidisciplinary study of serology, viral phylogenetics, bat ecology, and immunology. We show that outbreaks in Pteropus bats are driven by increased population density, loss of immunity over time, and viral recrudescence, resulting in multiyear interepizootic periods. Incidence is low, but bats carry NiV across Bangladesh and can shed virus at any time of year, highlighting the importance of routes of transmission to the timing and location of human NiV outbreaks.