Nipah virus (NiV), a highly pathogenic henipavirus of the family Paramyxoviridae, which causes fatal
encephalitis in 40-70% of affected patients, was first reported in Malaysia over 20 years ago. Pteropid
bats are the natural hosts of henipaviruses, and ticks have been proposed as a possible link between
bats and mammalian hosts. To investigate this hypothesis, infection of the tick cell line IDE8 with NiV
was examined. Presence of viral RNA and antigen in the NiV-infected tick cells was confirmed. Infectious
virions were recovered from NiV-infected tick cells and ultrastructural features of NiV were observed
by electron microscopy. These results suggest that ticks could support NiV infection, potentially playing
a role in transmission.