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Butler says Australia closely monitoring spread of Nipah virus overseas

Butler was asked about the spread of Nipah virus in India, which has confirmed two cases over the past month. The deadly virus has prompted airport screenings across parts of Asia, although Indian officials said there had been “timely containment” of cases.

It’s not transmissible in the way that your listeners would understand Covid or the flu to be transmitted in an airborne way. It requires very close personal contact between humans and the exchange effectively of bodily fluids. So there’s reason to hope that this has been contained.

But we’re monitoring it very, very closely. We don’t have any advice at the moment to change our existing protocols for sick travellers who arrive in Australia. There already are protocols for that, but we’ll continue to watch the situation closely.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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