Nipah virus can’t survive in fruits: NIV scientists

PUNE: Scientists at the city’s National Institute of Virology said Nipah virus did not spread through fruits.
“Viruses are obligatory parasites. They cannot multiply in fruits. Like any other virus, Nipah virus needs animal or human cells to survive and multiply,” National Institute of Virology (NIV) director and senior scientist Devendra Mourya told TOI.




The country’s fruit exports dipped after the outbreak of Nipah in Kerala. The deadly virus claimed 17 lives in the southern state, following which India’s fruit exports and consumption within the country went down significantly.

The NIV scientists urged citizens not to shy away from eating fruits because they did not provide the virus with the mechanism to survive and spread.

“Misleading posts circulating on social media have created this misconception among the masses about not eating fruits. Nipah virus is spread by fruit bats (Pteropus giganteus). A very small proportion of these bats secrete the virus. But the posts on social media brazenly say without any scientific basis about not eating fruits. This has adversely impacted the sales and badly affected the country’s farmers,” Mourya said.

Fruit bats (Pteropus giganteus) are the only known reservoir for the virus till date. “Not all fruit-eating bats carry the virus. A small proportion of them secretes the virus. Human beings rarely come into contact of the infected secretion and develop the disease,” he said.

Mourya said the citizens should stay away from eating fruits nibbled by birds, including bats. “This is a precautionary measure. Otherwise, viruses cannot survive in fruits,” Mourya said.

Explaining the dynamics, Mourya said, “The virus may infect a human through fruits only when an individual consumes a fruit nibbled by an infected bat immediately after the fruit came in contact with its infected saliva. In this case, the virus which has got on to the fruit surface through its saliva gets human cells to survive. Any time gap in between kills the virus then and there. The virus cannot survive in fruits.”

The fruit bats make colonies mainly on trees. “It is the biggest in size among other bat species. Their flight range is also way beyond the regular bats,” NIV medical scientist and epidemiologist Rima Sahay said.

Besides low export, union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh expressed concern over plummeting sales of fruits in India. “The fruit consumption within the country has gone down significantly. This affected the fruit growers and farmers,” Singh said.

An official of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority confirmed the drop in fruits’ export after Nipah virus outbreak. “Mainly, consumption and sales of mangoes, bananas, pomegranates and grapes went down,” he said.