Search

Nipah virus is an emerging zoonotic pathogen that causes disease outbreaks in South-East Asia with high case fatality rates. It is considered to be a public health risk and there are limited medical countermeasures for treatment or prevention, and as a Biosafety Level 4 pathogen, limited places able to work with Nipah virus. Animal models are required for the evaluation of medical countermeasures. Female hamsters, in groups of three or six were infected IP with a sixlog10 range doses of Nipah virus Malaysia. Hamsters were weighed daily and checked every four hours. Animals were scored on the condition of coat, posture, eyes, respiration, activity and neurological signs. Hamsters were monitored for 14 post-infection. Organ samples were taken for histopathological analysis and for viral load determination. Immunohistochemistry was performed with anti-Nipah virus glycoprotein antibody. Hamsters were susceptible to infection with NiV-M by the IP. route at all challenge doses. Animals started showing signs of infection and succumbing to disease in a dose-dependent manner, succumbing between days 4 and 9. The progression of clinical signs was rapid. Viable virus could not be detected in any of the organs, or in the blood of any of the eight animals that survived the infection. No viable virus was recovered from six of the animals that succumbed to infection. Where viable virus was recovered, it was predominantly in the spleen, brain or lung. No pathological changes were observed in the brain whislt many pathological changes were observed in the lungs. Immunohistochemistry showed NiV was localised to the lung blood vessel endothelial cells in animals that succumbed. We demonstrated that, similar to previously known data, the hamster is susceptible to Nipah virus. We have shown that disease progressed rapidly, and that the lungs were the main site for viral replication and pathological changes. © Crown copyright (2022), Dstl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]