Menangle virus

A virus that causes a disease first found in a piggery near Sydney, Australia in 1997. The virus was highly contagious, moving between pigs in different pens and sheds.

It caused numerous deformed and stillborn piglets with abnormalities of the central nervous system.

The virus also caused an influenza-like illness in two of the workers at the piggery.

They later recovered.

Fruit bats (flying foxes) near the piggery had antibodies to the Menangle virus, indicating that they had been exposed to the virus.

It is believed that fruit bats are the natural host of the virus, and it was a relatively rare event that led to the virus 'jumping' into pigs.

The Menangle virus belongs to the paramyxovirus family.