To tackle the Nipah Virus and to develop a roadmap to do the same, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, with support from the Wellcome Trust, will collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO). This will facilitate the collaborative development of a draft ‘Nipah R&D Roadmap’.

Nipah Virus is one of the pathogens in the WHO R&D Blueprint list of epidemic threats that need urgent research and development action. According to WHO, the roadmap prioritises the development of countermeasures (diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines) that need to be taken by Nipah-affected countries. It is the result of extensive consultations with the Nipah R&D roadmap taskforce, national and international experts and other key stakeholders.

The first Blueprint list of priority diseases was released in December 2015, and the list was reviewed last in February 2018. The disease’s potential to cause a public health emergency and the absence of efficacious drugs and/or vaccines helps the experts determine if there is an urgent need for accelerated research and development for these diseases.