The 1998–1999 Malaysia Nipah virus outbreak was a Nipah virus outbreak occurred from September 1998 to May 1999 in the states of Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor in Malaysia. A total of 265 cases of acute encephalitis with 105 deaths caused by the virus were reported in the three states throughout the outbreak. The Malaysian health authorities at the first thought Japanese encephalitis (JE) was the cause of infection which hampered the deployment of effective measures to prevent the spread before being finally identified by a local virologist from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya that it was a newly discovered agent named Nipah virus (NiV). The disease was as deadly as the Ebola virus disease (EVD), but attacked the brain system instead of the blood vessels. University of M