ABSTRACT
Isolation of a new paramyxovirus from cerebrospinal fluid specimens of several patients indicated that this was the etiological agent [3,4]. The virus was subsequently named Nipah virus, after Sungai Nipah, the village in which the patients whose specimens yielded the first viral isolates lived. Viral genomic sequencing has now established Nipah virus as a new paramyxovirus closely related to Hendra virus [4,8]. Hendra virus caused
disease among horses and affected three patients in Australia in 1994 and 1995 [9,10]. There is a high degree of nucleotide homology in the open reading frames of the various genes of Hendra virus and Nipah virus that exceeds 70% and a amino acid identity of more than 80% in most genes [4,8].
