Nipah vs COVID-19: The Nipah virus is among the deadliest zoonotic infections known to humans, with reported fatality rates ranging from 40 to 75 percent. What makes Nipah particularly frightening is not just the organs it infects, such as the brain and lungs, but the way it systematically dismantles the body’s immune defenses while simultaneously triggering destructive inflammation.
In most viral illnesses, a strong immune response leads to recovery. With Nipah, the opposite happens. The immune system reacts aggressively, yet inefficiently. Patients, often young and previously healthy, can deteriorate rapidly, developing encephalitis, respiratory failure, and multi-organ collapse within days. This paradoxical immune response is central to why Nipah remains so lethal and why early detection and containment are critical.
How Nipah Virus Disarms the Body’s First Line of Defence
The body’s earliest response to viral infection comes from the innate immune system, particularly through molecules called interferons. These signalling proteins act as an alarm system, warning neighbouring cells and activating antiviral defenses. Dr Deep Narayan Mukherjee, consultant clinical microbiology and infectious diseases, CK Birla Hospitals, CMRI, “Nipah virus is a highly dangerous RNA virus that often begins with flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, cough, sore throat, and muscle pain. However, the disease can rapidly worsen when it affects the brain, leading to encephalitis.”
Nipah virus doesn’t merely evade this system, it actively shuts it down.
Research from global virology institutions and public health agencies shows that Nipah virus proteins block interferon signalling pathways, preventing the immune system from mounting a rapid antiviral response. This gives the virus a crucial head start, allowing it to replicate and spread before the body even realises the scale of the threat.
By the time adaptive immunity begins to respond, the infection is already widespread.
Vascular Attack: How Nipah Spreads System-Wide
One of the most dangerous features of Nipah virus is its ability to infect endothelial cells, the cells lining blood vessels. This characteristic sharply distinguishes Nipah from many common respiratory viruses. Dr Mukherjee explains that Nipah is primarily a zoonotic disease transmitted by fruit bats, which are the natural carriers of the virus. Humans can become infected either indirectly through animals such as pigs or directly through contact with contaminated food or bat secretions.
As the virus damages blood vessel linings, it triggers widespread vascular inflammation. This serves two devastating purposes:
1. It allows the virus to travel easily to multiple organs, including the brain
2. It destabilises immune regulation across the body
This vascular involvement explains why Nipah causes severe brain inflammation (encephalitis), respiratory distress, and circulatory failure, often simultaneously.
When the Immune System Overreacts and Self-Destructs
As blood vessels become inflamed, the immune system responds with a flood of inflammatory molecules. Instead of a targeted antiviral attack, the body enters a state of uncontrolled inflammation.
This response resembles a cytokine storm, but in Nipah infection, it is often more aggressive and less regulated. The result is widespread tissue damage, swelling, and organ dysfunction.
Health agencies have noted that this immune-driven damage contributes directly to:
1. Respiratory failure
2. Severe neurological symptoms
3. Shock and circulatory collapse
In short, the immune system becomes a weapon that harms the body it is meant to protect.
Immune Exhaustion: When Defence Cells Burn Out
Another hallmark of Nipah infection is immune exhaustion. Although the virus does not primarily infect white blood cells, the intense inflammatory environment it creates leads to prolonged immune overactivation. Over time, key immune cells become exhausted, overstimulated and then functionally impaired.
This means the body is trapped in a dangerous loop:
1. Early immune defences are suppressed
2. Later immune responses are excessive but ineffective
3. Defence cells burn out before the virus is cleared
By the time the immune system regains balance, irreversible damage has often already occurred.
How Nipah Virus Is Different From COVID-19
While both Nipah virus and SARS-CoV-2 can trigger severe inflammation, their behaviour inside the body is fundamentally different.
COVID-19 primarily targets the respiratory system and, in severe cases, triggers immune overreaction later in the infection. Many patients recover once the immune response stabilises.
Nipah virus, on the other hand:
1. Suppresses early immune signalling from the start
2. Attacks blood vessels directly
3. Causes early and severe neurological involvement
4. Produces a faster, more chaotic immune collapse
This combination makes Nipah outbreaks far deadlier on an individual level, even though they spread less easily than COVID-19.
Why Early Detection Is the Only Real Defence
Nipah virus is deadly not because the immune system fails to respond, but because the virus turns the immune response against the body itself. By silencing early defences, exhausting immune cells, and unleashing harmful inflammation, Nipah creates a perfect biological storm.
At present, there is no specific cure. This is why vigilance, rapid diagnosis, isolation, and strict containment remain the most effective tools in preventing loss of life during outbreaks. Understanding how Nipah overwhelms the immune system is not just a scientific concern, it is a public health imperative in an increasingly interconnected world.
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(This article is based on information available in the public domain and on input provided by experts consulted. Views expressed by experts in the articles are their own; Zee News does not confirm or endorse the same. This article is meant for informational purposes only and must not be considered a substitute for advice provided by qualified medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about communicable diseases, diabetes, weight loss, or other medical conditions.)
