# 5911
The movie `Contagion’ showed the world how a bat virus could mutate, evolve, and move into the human population. While the movie used a fictionalized MEV-1 virus, bats in some parts of the world are known to carry deadly pathogens, such as the Nipah and Hendra viruses.
While human infections with these two viruses have been relatively uncommon, when they have occurred they have proven particularly lethal, with fatality rates exceeding 60%.
Nipah was first identified in Malaysia in 1998, where it jumped to local swine herds from bats, and along with infecting hundreds of people, it caused the loss over 100 lives. The virus was then exported via live pigs to Singapore, where 11 more people died.
Over the past decade, Nipah has caused a number of small outbreaks across Southern Asia, although the most intense activity has been centered around Bangladesh.
The Hendra virus was first isolated in 1994 after the deaths of 13 horses and a trainer in Hendra, a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. A stable hand, who also cared for the horses, was hospitalized, but survived.
Another outbreak took place in MacKay, 1000 km to the north of Brisbane, the previous month. Two horses died, and the owner was hospitalized several weeks later with meningitis.
He recovered, but developed neurological symptoms and died 14 months later.
Subsequent studies have showed a high prevalence of the newly identified Hendra virus in Pteropid fruit bats (flying foxes) in the region.
Nipah/Hendra Virus & Fruit Bat Home Range – WHO
Although very similar, unlike Hendra, the Nipah virus has been shown to be transmissible from human-to-human. Like all viruses, both have the potential to mutate and evolve - and over time - become better adapted to their hosts.
According to the World Health Organization there are currently no effective treatments for either of these diseases (see here and here), but according to a new study just published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, there is hope that may change.
The study is called:
Sci Transl Med 19 October 2011:
Vol. 3, Issue 105, p. 105ra103
Sci. Transl. Med. DOI:10.1126/scitranslmed.3002901
A Neutralizing Human Monoclonal Antibody Protects African Green Monkeys from Hendra Virus Challenge
Katharine N. Bossart, Thomas W. Geisbert, Heinz Feldmann, Zhongyu Zhu, Friederike Feldmann, Joan B. Geisbert, Lianying Yan, Yan-Ru Feng, Doug Brining, Dana Scott, Yanping Wang, Antony S. Dimitrov, Julie Callison, Yee-Peng Chan, Andrew C. Hickey, Dimiter S. Dimitrov, Christopher C. Broder,† and Barry Rockx
The NIH – which supported this research – issued a press release yesterday afternoon describing this study:
Embargoed for Release
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
2 p.m. EDTAntibody treatment protects monkeys from Hendra virus disease
NIH-supported group exploring whether protection extends to Nipah virus disease
A human antibody given to monkeys infected with the deadly Hendra virus completely protected them from disease, according to a study published by National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and their collaborators. Hendra and the closely related Nipah virus, both rare viruses that are part of the NIH biodefense research program, target the lungs and brain and have human case fatality rates of 60 percent and more than 75 percent, respectively. These diseases in monkeys mirror what happens in humans, and the study results are cause for hope that the antibody, named m102.4, ultimately may be developed into a possible treatment for people who become infected with these viruses.
In May 2010, shortly after the NIH study in monkeys successfully concluded, Australian health officials requested m102.4 for emergency use in a woman and her 12-year-old daughter. They had been exposed to Hendra virus from an ill horse that ultimately was euthanized. Both the woman and child survived and showed no side effects from the treatment.
The human monoclonal antibody (hmAb) m102.4 has been the object of Hendra-Nipah research for a number of years. In 2009 research published in PLoS Pathogens illustrated its protective effect against Nipah in ferrets.
A Neutralizing Human Monoclonal Antibody Protects against Lethal Disease in a New Ferret Model of Acute Nipah Virus Infection
Now that this hmAb has been shown effective against the Hendra virus in primates, researchers hope they may have the basis for what will eventually become a viable treatment for these deadly viruses.
For more on human monoclonal antibodies, and their potential to treat influenza, you may wish to revisit a couple of blogs I wrote in 2009 and 2010:
Research: Monoclonal Antibodies Against Influenza
Monoclonal Antibodies Revisited
