New Delhi:

A 14-year-old boy from Pandikkad in Malappuram tested positive for Nipah on Saturday. The National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune confirmed the infection.

“NIV, Pune has confirmed the infection. Residents of Malappuram should remain vigilant. The boy is in critical condition and has been shifted to the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital,” state Health Minister Veena George said. 

“The timings of the child’s travel will be released with the route map. People who travelled with the child should inform the department using the Nipah control rooms. The control rooms will assist people with tests and clear their concerns,” the minister added.

The Kerala health department shared that 214 individuals who had contact with the teenager are under observation. Among them, 60 are categorised as high-risk. Those being monitored will be isolated, and samples from the high-risk group will be collected and tested promptly. A 24-hour control room has been set up at the government rest house in Malappuram. The district collector, police chief and other officials will meet to decide whether to impose restrictions within a 3-kilometre radius of the outbreak’s epicentre.

Earlier, in 2018, at least 17 people from the Kozhikode and Malappuram districts died due to the Nipah virus. Amid the rising concerns over the spread of the virus, listed below are the causes, symptoms and treatment:

Causes:

Transmission: The Nipah virus is primarily spread from fruit bats to humans. Contact with infected bats, their saliva or contaminated food can transmit the virus. Human-to-human transmission has also been observed, particularly through respiratory droplets and bodily fluids.

Symptoms:

Initial symptoms often include fever, headache and muscle pain, with an incubation period ranging from 5 to 14 days post-exposure.

As the disease progresses, symptoms can escalate to encephalitis (brain inflammation), seizures and confusion. Respiratory issues such as cough and sore throat may also appear.

In severe cases, the virus can lead to coma and death, with a mortality rate ranging from 40% to 75% depending on the outbreak.

Treatment:

There is no specific antiviral treatment for the Nipah virus. Health officials often focus on supportive care, including maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance and addressing symptoms as they arise.

Prevention:

The World Health Organization recommends to minimise contact with fruit bats and pigs, especially in outbreak areas. Ensure food is thoroughly cooked and avoid consuming raw or partially cooked fruits.

Good hygiene practices such as frequent handwashing and using personal protective equipment, are essential in preventing the spread of the virus.

Bat populations in many Indian States harbour serological evidence of exposure to Nipah virus,” the Nature article points out. 
| Photo Credit: CraigRJD

Many places in Southeast Asia, such as Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, southern China, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and some Indian States, have Nipah virus reservoirs and could experience cross-species transmission to humans, says an article published in the recent issue of Nature journal.

The article in the ‘World view’ section, titled ‘a personal take on science and society’, is authored by T.S. Anish, one of the leaders of the Nipah surveillance team in Kerala, and epidemiology professor at Government Medical College, Manjeri, Malappuram.

Based on his experience during the 2018 and 2023 outbreaks in the State, Dr. Anish calls for more scientific and policy work on the infection.

As a key first step, all countries likely to have Nipah virus reservoirs should have early detection systems. “The strain in Kerala’s outbreaks originated from Bangladesh in 2001. Health systems have missed this strain because its mortality rate is so high that it often causes small outbreaks or single cases,” he says.

“To reach Kerala, the virus must have spread undetected over more than 2,000 km, from Bangladesh or the neighbouring Indian State of West Bengal. It is highly probable that many places in Southeast Asia have Nipah virus reservoirs and could experience spillovers. Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, southern China, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and many Indian States all lie in a similar distance from Bangladesh and are home to fruit bats. Bat populations in many Indian States harbour serological evidence of exposure to Nipah virus,” the article points out.

Dr. Anish says that lack of treatment options for Nipah is a concern as drug trials are difficult because outbreaks typically last for only a few days. “Kerala’s experience is that using antivirals not specific to Nipah might have helped some people infected near the end of the outbreaks in 2018 and 2023. More research is needed, as is wider distribution of general antivirals,” he says.

The development of monoclonal antibodies from Nipah survivors in Kerala is also a priority. These will be specific to the local variant and could be given to people with early symptoms and to high-risk contacts, such as frontline healthcare workers, to save lives. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh, is already studying about 50 survivors of Nipah.

According to Gavi, the vaccine alliance, several candidate vaccines for Nipah are in clinical trials, including one based on messenger RNA, one based on a viral vector, and one containing the protein subunit of Hendra virus, which closely resembles Nipah.

Because Nipah is an RNA virus that is prone to mutate, studying the virological factors contributing to severity is important for monitoring its pandemic potential. It is also crucial to study variation in immunological mechanisms known to affect people’s susceptibility to Nipah, the article adds.

Kozhikode:

In the wake of the Nipah virus infection, all educational institutes in Kerala’s Kozhikode will remain shut for a week until next Sunday, September 24. This includes schools, professional colleges, and tuition centres.

Meanwhile, online classes will be ensured throughout the week, the district administration said on Friday.

Health minister Veena George has said on Friday that at present, the contact list of infected persons has 1,080 people while 130 people have been newly included today in the list. Out of all this 327 people in the list are health workers.

A total of 29 people in other districts are in the contact list of Nipah-infected people. Among them, 22 are from Malappuram, one from Wayanad and three each from Kannur and Thrissur, said Veena George.

In the high-risk category, 175 are common people and 122 are healthcare workers.

The Health Minister further informed that the number of people in the contact list is likely to increase as the test result of the person who died on August 30 has come out positive making it the index case of Nipha in the district.

As of now, six positive cases of Nipah Virus have been reported in the state.

As many as 17 persons who had attended the cremation of the man who died on August 30 were put under isolation. While four of the active cases are undergoing treatment in hospitals.

All hospitals treating Nipah cases should form a medical board to meet twice a day and should hand over the report to the health department. The district collector has issued orders regarding this on the basis of the infectious disease control protocols of the state.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

A 39-year-old man in Kerala’s Kozhikode district, who had sought treatment at a private hospital where Nipah virus-affected were treated for other ailments earlier, has tested positive for the virus, taking the total known Nipah infections in the southern state to six. The zoonotic virus, transmitted between species from animals to humans, has already killed two people in Kerala this year, in its fourth outbreak since 2018.

State Health Minister Veena George’s office on Friday said that the 39-year-old man has been confirmed with the Nipah virus after his samples turned positive. He was under observation in a hospital.

The virus strain seen in the state was the Bangladesh variant, which originated 5 km from the forest, spreads from human to human and has a high mortality rate, though it is less infectious, the government has said.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has sent monoclonal antibody, required to treat the Nipah virus infection, to Kerala. The medicine is yet to be clinically proven, but is the only available antiviral treatment for the Nipah virus infection.

The National Institute of Virology and the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) have sent mobile testing vans to Kozhikode. This will boost testing.

A central team is also in Kerala to monitor the situation.

People have been asked to avoid liquor collected in open vessels from palm trees.

A 24-year-old health worker at a private hospital in Kozhikode was yesterday diagnosed with the virus.

706 people are on the contact list, of which, 77 are in the high-risk category, while 153 are health workers. Nobody in the high-risk category is showing symptoms currently, Kerala Health Minister Veena George said on Wednesday.

As many as 13 people are presently in the hospital under observation, and are showing mild symptoms like headache, she said.

Ms George said that the state is aiming for “proactive detection” of infection before cases are confirmed in labs. The health administration is monitoring clinical symptoms so that alerts can be sounded in advance.

The state administration, Ms George said, is focusing on tracing contacts of infected persons early and isolating those with symptoms.

There are no vaccines to prevent or cure the infection, which has a mortality rate of between about 70 per cent. The usual treatment is to provide supportive care.

Infected people initially develop symptoms that include fever, respiratory distress, headaches, and vomiting, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Encephalitis and seizures can also occur in severe cases, leading to coma.

In 2018, an outbreak in Kerala claimed 21 lives, with other outbreaks in 2019 and 2021.

Central team of officials to visit Nipah-hit areas

A Central team of officials is expected to visit Maruthonkara and Ayancheri areas in Kozhikode district of Kerala on Friday where two persons died due to Nipah infection recently. Five people have so far tested positive for the virus, of whom two are dead. The others are undergoing treatment. Restrictions are continuing in at least nine grama panchayats in Kozhikode district, where a holiday has been declared for educational institutions till Saturday. The Central team reached Kozhikode on Thursday morning and held parleys with State officials. According to sources, they will coordinate with the State departments of Health and Animal Husbandry in taking up containment measures.

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Thiruvananthapuram:

The Kerala government on Thursday decided to take body-fluid samples of all of those who are on the ‘high-risk’ contact list linked to the first Nipah victim, a 47-year-old man who died on August 30 in the latest outbreak of the infection in the state.

State Health Minister Veena George said they had a high-level meeting on Thursday and after that the Principal Secretary had a meeting with officials of the Union Government.

“We have decided to take samples of all the persons who are in the high-risk contact list of the first person, who died on August 30,” said Veena George.

The Minister also said that the hospitals, where Nipah patients are being treated, should constitute a medical board for their treatment, and every 12 hours they should provide a medical report of the patients to the Health Department.

Veena George said that there are 14 persons in isolation who don’t have any epidemiological link with the persons who died of the Nipah virus.

“We have some patients in isolation in private hospitals. Eleven have got mild symptoms, so their samples are also being taken and sent to the lab,” said Ms George.

The Minister also said that the vitals of the nine-year-old son of the first Nipah victim, who is being treated for the disease, are stable.

The minister flagged off the mobile virology lab of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology. The mobile virology lab will be deployed in Nipah containment zone in the Kozhikode district.

The Minister said the mobile lab has two machines each of which can test 96 samples at a time.  

Chandrabhas Narayana, Director of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, said that the mobile lab will function round the clock.  The results of the samples tested will be available after around six hours of the test, he added.

Meanwhile, after a health worker from a private hospital tested positive for Nipah on Wednesday, the number of cases in the current spell of Nipah in Kerala rose to five.

In Kozhikode district, where Nipah cases have been reported, District Collector declared closure of educational institutions on September 16, in addition to the two-day closure for September 14 and 15.

The schedule of university and PSC exam remains unchanged.

“All tuition centres and coaching centres in the district should not function on these days. Educational institutes can arrange online classes… Avoid unnecessary travel and gatherings. Caution is prevention,” said the Kozhikode DC A Geetha in a social media post.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Nipah virus spreads much slower than Covid and unlike Covid, it spreads through a vector, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told NDTV today. A treatment protocol is there and once the tests are done and the disease is identified, the treatment can progress fast, he added.

Five cases of Nipah virus have surfaced in Kerala. Two people have died and the other three, including a nine-year-old boy, are undergoing treatment. The boy is critical and on ventilator support.

Asked about the new disease triggering fresh panic in view of the pandemic the world went through four years ago, the minister told NDTV in an exclusive interview: “I’d like to assure that Covid taught us many things including our weaknesses and has led to better surveillance systems.”

The government, he said, has set up such a system now that information of any outbreak — even from a remote village — can reach the Central command system immediately. “We can conduct surveillance at a remote village and gather information,” he said.

Part of the reason is the district laboratories the government is setting up at every district, he said. The government has spent Rs 100 crore in each district setting up labs for testing which will be done for free.  

“We are setting up this system across the country, so the Centre is informed immediately… genome sequencing is done and the information comes to the command centre,” he said.

Speaking of the current outbreak, he said, “Today at a village in Kozhikode there is the Nipah virus outbreak. It came into out notice immediately, and we took action immediately. Our teams went, the SOP was implemented and the state and Centre took action. We will do whatever needed to ensure there are no new cases,” he added.

“I’d like to assure the country that the Narendra Modi government is taking care of the country’s health sector in a very thorough and careful manner,” he added.

The virus, spread through vectors like bats and pigs, causes fever, respiratory distress, headaches, and vomiting, There is no vaccine to prevent or cure the infection. The treatment involves supportive care.

The Kerala government has declared seven villages in Kozhikode district — Atanchery, Maruthonkara, Tiruvallur, Kuttiyadi, Kayakkodi, Villyapalli, and Kavilumpara — have been declared containment zones. Essential items are being delivered to those in isolation.  

The state has formed 19 core committees to coordinate the measures to contain the spread of the virus.

New Delhi:

The ICMR’s National Institute of Virology in Pune on Thursday sent its mobile BSL-3 laboratory to Kozhikode in Kerala to test samples for Nipah virus in the district itself after five cases, including two deaths, were reported there.

A team of experts from the Department of Animal Husbandry has also been deployed to assist the state in the surveillance of animals, official sources told PTI. Apparently, samples will be collected from bats to check for the presence of the Nipah virus.

The brain-damaging virus has killed two people and infected three others in Kozhikode district so far. On Wednesday, a 24-year-old health worker became Kerala’s fifth confirmed Nipah case since its recent outbreak.

“The ICMR’s mBSL-3, which is the first biosafety level-3 containment mobile laboratory of South Asia, has been stationed at Kozhikode. It will help in early testing and detection of the infection at the district itself,” an official source said.

So far, the samples were being sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune.

The mobile laboratory was set up in February last year to investigate newly emerging and reemerging viral infections that are highly infectious and of lethal potential to human beings.

Union Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar visited the ICMR’s National Institute of Virology in Pune and held a review meeting in view of the Nipah virus cases reported in Kozhikode.

She said the affected gram panchayats in the Kozhikode district have been declared as quarantine zones.

A five-member central team comprising experts from the National Centre for Disease Control, RML Hospital and NIMHANS has been stationed in Kerala to take stock of the situation and assist the state government in the management of the Nipah virus infection.

The Union Health Ministry and the ICMR-NIV is monitoring the situation on a daily basis and all possible arrangements are being made by the Central government to deal with the viral outbreak, Pawar added.

The Kerala government on Thursday said there was no need to be apprehensive about the Nipah outbreak in Kozhikode district but caution needs to be exercised by people as they go about their daily activities.

The Kerala government on Thursday said the monoclonal antibody required for treatment of those infected by the Nipah virus has arrived in the state. State Health Minister Veena George said a meeting was held between the Principal Secretary of the Health Department and the Union Health Ministry earlier in the day and now the monoclonal antibody has arrived. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Kerala shut some schools and offices this week as officials raced to halt the spread of the deadly Nipah virus, after it killed two people in the fourth outbreak since 2018.

Here is what we know about the virus:

Where did Nipah virus come from?

The Nipah virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak of illness among pig farmers in Malaysia and Singapore.

It is able to infect humans directly through contact with the bodily fluids of infected bats and pigs, with some documented cases of transmission among humans.

Scientists suspect Nipah has existed among flying foxes for millennia and fear a mutated, highly transmissible strain will emerge from bats.

How is Nipah virus treated?

There are no vaccines to prevent or cure the infection, which has a mortality rate of between about 70%. The usual treatment is to provide supportive care.

Infected people initially develop symptoms that include fever, respiratory distress, headaches, and vomiting, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Encephalitis and seizures can also occur in severe cases, leading to coma.

The virus is on the WHO’s research and development list of pathogens with epidemic potential.

Where were earlier Nipah virus outbreaks?

The 1998 outbreak in Malaysia and Singapore killed more than 100 people and infected nearly 300. Since then, it has spread thousands of miles, killing between 72% and 86% of those infected.

More than 600 cases of Nipah virus human infections were reported between 1998 to 2015, WHO data shows.

A 2001 outbreak in India and two more in Bangladesh killed 62 of 91 people infected.

In 2018, an outbreak in Kerala claimed 21 lives, with other outbreaks in 2019 and 2021.

Parts of Kerala are among those most at risk globally for outbreaks of bat viruses, a Reuters investigation showed in May.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Mangaluru:

The Dakshina Kannada district administration in Karnataka has sounded an alert in the district following the confirmation of Nipah cases in neighbouring Kerala.

The Health department has asked the police to open checkposts at border points to inspect goods vehicles entering the district. The police have been directed to check fruits entering the state from Kerala.

The district health officer Dr Sudarshan asked the eight medical colleges in Mangaluru to keep patients under observation who come to them with suspected cases of brain fever.

Dr Sudarshan told reporters here on Wednesday that directives have been issued taluk hospitals, primary health centres in the district to promptly conduct fever surveys.

Isolation wards have been made ready at key healthcare facilities including the district Wenlock hospital here. Private hospitals have also been asked to report any suspected case of Nipah or brain fever.

Though Dakshina Kannada has not reported any Nipah case so far, all precautionary measures are being made after confirmation of the disease outbreak in neighbouring Kerala, he said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)