A summary from an article featured in NST.com
The article is about Professor Chua Kaw Bing of Universiti Malaya and his journey of discovering the Nipah virus in Malaysia, which had an outbreak during 1998 in malaysia causing 265 cases of encephalitis and 105 deaths within 8 months.
The first outbreak of this virus happened in a pig farm situated in Ampang, Ipoh. The government had quickly took measures and contain the area, and most experts believe that it was the mosquito-born Japanese encephalitis virus. However, Prof Chua didn’t thought the same way. There are few reasons that why he decided to investigate the matter.
First of all, the manifestation of the disease is the pigs was quite unusual. The disease also showed prevalence in male adults. Both of these points are not JE trait. Despite all the measures taken to contain the area, the disease continue to spread.
Prof Chua was the 5th people to be given the chance to discover the virus. The initial four institution decided to let him do the job. The work wasn’t easy as he need to convince a lot of people that this is probably a new virus and was officially involved in working with Nipah virus in Feb 1999. His work ultimately suggested that the virus belongs to paramyxovirus (for example those causing measles and mumps), instead of arbovirus which is transmitted by anthropods. The discovery of Nipah virus made the government changed the control measures and the outbreak was being controlled. The public thinks that the pigs may have been the reservoir host. Further research by Prof Chua identified that 2 species of fruit bats happened to be the natural reservoirs of the virus.
Editor’s note: It would be really cool if he named the virus with his name!
Picture taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Henipavirus_structure.png
November 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Yeah, or that of his spouse. The Chua Kaw Bing Virus sounds weird, maybe KawBing Virus still OK hehe.
But do you have any idea why is it named as Nipah, of all things?
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November 28th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
found this in one of the websites.
” The disease episode has been hypothesised to arise initially from two equine mortalities in Ampang in 1997. Subsequently, in 1998, mild disease in swine followed by mortalities in man in Ampang/Ulu Piah pig farms were reported. A similar disease in pigs and mortalities in man was reported in Sikamat/Sg. Nipah/Bukit Pelanduk from 1998. ”
maybe because of the location.
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November 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
its named because of the location
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs262/en/
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duh Reply:
November 30th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Naming d virus after Dr chua”s wife is so not cool.Do u have any idea how ***** she is??
Oh yeah.Apart from Nipah virus, Dr chua also discovered the Melaka virus and Timur virus. There’s a rule now in the international nomenclature society against naming a virus/ sickness after d discovere’s name. Imagine if u discovered more than 1 virus..R u going to name it John virus 1, John virus 2 and so on?? [I think d ketua menteri melaka should take note about dis(yeah d same ketua menteri who awarded shah rukh khan a datukship!!!)coz when Dr chua held a press conference to announce his discovery of d Melaka virus, d clueless CM accused Dr chua of tainting Melaka’s name with a disease and d CM actually suggested that Dr chua name d virus after himself.He should definetely do his research abt d nomenclature thing 1sr b4 opening his mouth. Hmmm..and u wonder why Malaysia don’t have many discoverers and not advance in research!!!
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flowerhorn Reply:
November 30th, 2008 at 8:56 am
great insight but I do not understand the part about his wife. by the way, it will also be a problem if there were more than 1 virus to be found in one place, then wouldn’t it be Melaka virus 1, Melaka virus 2? I think the person/scientist who made the discovery should be given power to choose at least the proper way of naming the things he discovered.
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