New virus is identified in Malaysia epidemic

Most of the cases, including 98 deaths, in the recent viral encephalitis outbreak in Malaysia have been due to contact with a newly identified virus, spread from pigs to humans, which government officials have named “nipah.” Thousands of pigs have been slaughtered in an attempt to combat the disease.

Initially, the Malaysian government believed the outbreak, which occurred in the pig farming states of Perak, Negri …