Chapter 8: Therapeutics Against Nipah and Hendra Virus

The Henipavirus genus in the Paramyxoviridae family currently contains five species; two of those, Hendra virus (HeV) and Nipah virus (NiV), pose a threat to public health. Due to their high case-fatality rate, effective therapeutics are urgently needed. Many compounds have been identified that inhibit HeV and/or NiV replication in vitro. Several of those have also shown efficacy in animal disease models of lethal HeV or NiV infection. In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of development of antivirals against HeV and NiV with an in-depth discussion of compounds identified in in vitro screens, their mechanism of action, antiviral efficacy data in animal models and where they are in the development pipeline from bench-to-bedside.