Another dangerous virus, Nipah, almost always fatal, has been added in recent days to SarsCov2 in the state of Kerala, the most affected by the pandemic in India.
A 12-year-old boy died yesterday, struck by Nipah: this was announced by the state health minister Veena George. According to George, another twenty of the nearly two hundred people who have had contact with the boy in the past week are under observation. “And at least two, both health workers, show symptoms of the virus,” the health department said. A health alert was launched in the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram and Kannur.
When it was identified and the symptoms
Nipah, a zoonotic virus, first identified by scientists in Malaysia in the late 1990s in a pig farm. In India there have been episodes of Nipah in West Bengal, in 2001 and 2007, and more recently, in Kerala, in 2018 and 2019. A cross-research of the two most prestigious Indian institutes, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology has identified the virus in saliva samples from bats.
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How it is transmitted
Nipah, first identified during an outbreak in Malaysia in the late 1990s, can be spread by fruit bats, pigs, and through human-to-human contact.
Symptoms and therapy
There is no vaccine for the virus, which can cause violent fevers, seizures, and vomiting that causes brain inflammation or difficulty breathing. The only treatment is supportive care to control complications and keep patients comfortable.
The virus has an estimated lethality rate of between 40% and 75%, according to the WHO, which makes it far more deadly than the coronavirus.
George said more samples will be tested on Tuesday and that a total of 48 contacts, including eight negative results, are currently being monitored in a hospital. Officials will also carry out door-to-door surveillance and identify secondary contacts.
Over the weekend, the federal government sent a team of experts to Kozhikode to help local officials trace contacts. They also suggested a list of recommendations, including strengthening health infrastructure in the event of multiple cases and alerting neighboring districts.
There were cases of Nipah in Kerala in 2018, when more than a dozen people died from the virus. This time around, concern is compounded by the fact that the state has grabbed national headlines in recent weeks for seeing the largest number of daily COVID-19 cases in all of India.
On Monday, Kerala recorded nearly 20,000 COVID-19 infections out of India’s daily total of 31,222. While cases across the country have declined after a devastating wave earlier this year, the situation in Kerala remains worrying, with experts warning that the state cannot let its guard down.
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