Council director-general Balaram Bhargava had made the request within a day of the nipah infection being confirmed in Kozhikode on May 19. Health authorities had until Saturday confirmed the nipah infection in 15 people, 13 of whom have died. Twenty-six others, who have developed symptoms or came into close contact with the nipah patients, are now under observation in two hospitals. In a paper in the journal PLOS One in 2009, Broder and his Australian colleagues had reported successfully testing the m102.4 in ferrets that had been given high-dose intra-nasal sprays of the nipah virus. The standard regulatory requirements for clinical trials - mandatory before commercial deployment of drugs or vaccines - demand multiple sets of clinical trials in increasing numbers of volunteers to establish safety and efficacy.

Source: The Telegraph May 27, 2018 21:00 UTC