Nipah virus is mainly found in South and South‑East Asia, not worldwide.

Where Nipah virus occurs

Human outbreaks so far have been reported in a small group of countries, usually in rural or semi‑rural areas.

  • Bangladesh – outbreaks almost every year since 2001, often linked to drinking raw date‑palm sap contaminated by bats.
  • India – repeated outbreaks, including in Kerala (south India) and West Bengal (east India), with the most recent events in Kerala in 2025 and West Bengal in January 2026.
  • Malaysia – the first known large outbreak in the late 1990s, linked to pig farms and bat‑to‑pig transmission.
  • Singapore – limited cases related to pigs imported from Malaysia.
  • Philippines – a smaller outbreak linked to horses and bat exposure.

The natural reservoir of Nipah virus is fruit bats (flying foxes) found across many parts of Asia, but human outbreaks have so far stayed confined to these regions.

What’s happening now (early 2026)

  • India has confirmed Nipah cases this month in West Bengal (North 24 Parganas district), with a small, localized hospital‑linked cluster.
  • Authorities and international agencies say the risk is assessed as moderate in the affected district, but low for the rest of India and globally, with no evidence of wide community or international spread.
  • Last year (2025), India also reported a small outbreak in Kerala’s Palakkad and Malappuram districts.

Quick practical takeaways

  • Nipah is not circulating everywhere; known human outbreaks are limited to specific parts of South and South‑East Asia.
  • Most people outside affected districts/regions are at very low risk; outbreaks have historically been small and locally contained.
  • In affected areas, higher‑risk exposures include contact with sick people’s body fluids, visiting poorly protected health‑care settings during an outbreak, and consuming raw date‑palm sap or fruits contaminated by bats.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.