Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya confirms 2 Nipah virus deaths in Kerala

The deadly Nipah virus has surfaced again in Kerala killing at least two so far, including a laboratory confirmed one, compelling the Centre to rush an expert team to aid the state administration and carrying out an on-the-spot assessment.

Kerala health minister Veena George Tuesday said the National Institute of Virology, Pune confirmed Nipah infection in three samples out of five sent for test.

In addition, there is a suspect index case who died on August 30. But he was never tested for the virus.

The update from the Kerala minister came hours after Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya confirmed two Nipah deaths in Delhi.

“I have spoken to the Health Minister of Kerala. There are two deaths caused by Nipah virus. The ministry has sent an expert team to Kerala" Mandaviya said at a press conference.

The deaths were reported from Kozhikode – the same district, which witnessed a Nipah outbreak in 2018 with 21 deaths out of 23 cases and a lone fatality in 2021.

The laboratory confirmed Nipah virus infections were the person who died on Monday, and the nine-year-old son and brother-in-law of another individual who died on August 30.

Since the person who died on Monday was suspected to have contracted infection from the person who died on August 30, the latter was considered to be the index case of the Nipah outbreak, George said, arguing that two Nipah deaths should be counted as per the protocol.

Two other family members of the person who died on August 30 were tested negative.

The August 30 case came under the scanner after the death of one with suspected symptoms on Monday as his contacts were traced.

Nipah virus, a highly pathogenic Paramyxovirus, is one of the ten priority pathogens identified by the World Health Organisation.

In India, it had caused past outbreaks in Siliguri and Nadia districts of West Bengal with case fatality rates of 68 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively.

The 2018 outbreak in Kozhikode had a case fatality rate of 91 per cent but a single case in 2019 in Ernakulam district resulted in a recovery, a NIV team reported in a 2020 study in which they analysed the Kerala cases.

A 12-year-old boy died of Nipah at Kozhikode in 2021. But an outbreak was contained since the state had a protocol to deal with the disease after the outbreak in 2018.

George said steps to arrange medicines like monoclonal antibodies for treating the infected were progressing and the district administration would initiate containment measures.

Meanwhile, there were reports that three relatives of the person who died on Monday were also showing symptoms of Nipah and had been hospitalised.

Among the 160 contacts of the two infected persons, the majority were health workers.

According to the WHO, Nipah virus infection is a zoonotic illness that is transmitted to people from animals. It can also be transmitted through contaminated food or from one person to another.

It causes a range of illnesses, from asymptomatic (subclinical) infection to acute respiratory illness and fatal encephalitis, among infected people.