Urgent Bali tourist alert for Nipah bat virus with 75 per cent fatality rate: All tourists to be screened – here are the symptoms Aussies should watch for

All tourists travelling to Bali will be screened for the deadly Nipah bat virus, as health authorities scramble to respond to a spike in cases overseas. 

Health officials in the Indonesian holiday island said any tourists displaying symptoms such as a high temperature or a respiratory tract infection would be taken to hospital for further tests – with those arriving from India under particular scrutiny.

There has been an outbreak of the virus, which is carried by bats and has a very high mortality rate, in Kerala, southern India, in recent weeks which has resulted in two deaths. 

There is no treatment or vaccine for Nipah virus, which targets the brain, and the fatality rate for sufferers is estimated by the World Health Organisation as between 40 and 75 per cent. 

Nipah’s symptoms include fever, respiratory distress, headaches, a sore throat and vomiting. 

Health officials in Bali will be screening passengers with temperature detection devices (stock)

Indian tourists constituted the second-largest group of foreign visitors to Bali, with just shy of 280,000 people visiting from January to August this year, according to the Bali Provincial Tourism Office. 

Australians are the largest group of foreign visitors.

‘We must remain vigilant regarding the Nipah virus threat,’ Bali’s chief health officer I Nyoman Gede Anom said, according to The Bali Sun. 

‘At the airport, temperature detection devices are in place. If a tourist is found to have a body temperature above normal, it will prompt further inquiry,’ Mr Anom added. 

He stressed that the Nipah virus has not yet been identified in Indonesia but warned its long incubation period was a cause for concern.

The Nipah virus has an incubation period of around four to 14 days, according to the World Health Organisation. 

Nipah’s symptoms include fever, respiratory distress, headaches, a sore throat and vomiting. There is no treatment or vaccine for the disease, which targets the brain

Mr Anom said Bali health officials had assembled a crack team of neurologists, surgeons and other specialists in the event any cases are detected. 

It is transmitted to humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected bats, pigs or other people.

It was first identified in 1999 during an outbreak affecting hog farmers and others in close contact with pigs in Malaysia and Singapore which resulted in nearly 300 human cases and more than 100 deaths.

More than one million pigs were killed to help control the outbreak. 

The WHO has confirmed no new cases of the virus have been detected in Kerala since September 15th.