It was not Ebola – it was a virus that became known as Nipah, after the Malaysian town of Kampung Sungai Nipah where it was first identified. But there are resemblances to Ebola in the way the disease suddenly emerged from the animal world and then spread between humans, causing a threat to life that caught the medical and scientific world off-guard. The virus is endemic in fruit bats – also known to carry Ebola virus. But since then there have been regular Nipah outbreaks in Bangladesh, where transmission occurs directly from fruit bats to humans. I would add as well that similar to Ebola virus, people in intimate contact with Nipah patients can acquire the infection, human to human.

Source: The Guardian January 18, 2017 22:00 UTC