A mystery virus is complicating attempts by the Malaysian authorities to
control an outbreak of encephalitis near pig farms which has already claimed 55
lives.
There were 145 suspected cases, 42 of which had been confirmed as Japanese
encephalitis as Â鶹´«Ã½ went to press. But a second, unrelated
virus has cropped up in spinal fluid from 5 patients. A team at the University
of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur says that the unknown virus resembles the “Hendra”
virus, first isolated near Brisbane, Australia, in 1994. It killed 15 horses and
two out of the three people it infected.
