By Thomas Scaria
Mangaluru: Kerala state, which has recorded the highest number of Covid -19 patients in India, now faces Nipah virus attack.
A 12-year-old boy died September 5 at a village in Kozhikode district, in the second outbreak of the disease in three years.
The village, Pazhoor, has isolated 188 people who are in the contact list, according to Veena George, the state’s health minister. Two health workers are also being treated for Nipah symptoms.
the boy’s samples, which were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, have returned positive for Nipah. The federal government said in a release that a team has been sent to Kerala to support the state in public health measures.
The federal team examined the village and studied the possibilities of spreading the virus from fruits bitten by the fruit bats.
The family of the diseased boy has cultivated rambutan in its farm and fruits from it are the suspected source.
Humans can get infected if they come in close contact with the infected animal, especially bats or pigs through its body fluids such as saliva or urine. The source of 2018 outbreak was from fruits bitten by bats.
The death rate for Nipah is nearly 90 percent, whereas Covid-19 reported not more than 2 percent casualties. The last Nipah outbreak was also in Kozhikode district- in Perambra in 2018 – that killed 17 of the 19 persons infected. However, the outbreak was contained with strict vigilance and governing under the then health minister K K Shailaja.
The first patient in 2018 had passed the virus to 16 persons, mostly health workers at the Medical College Hospital and two others outside. The outbreak began in Kozhikode district and later spread to the adjoining Malappuram district. Two suspected cases were detected in Mangaluru, the port town of neighboring Karnataka state.
Lini Puthussery, a 28-year-old nurse at the Perambra Taluk Hospital who fell victim to Nipah, was hailed on social media and by doctors as a hero for her sacrifice.