With health authorities confirming the presence of the Nipah virus in Kerala, the state government has now revealed that the strain of the virus detected belongs to the Bangladesh variant. Known to spread from human to human, the variant carries a high mortality rate despite being less infectious.
The confirmation of Nipah infections in Kozhikode district has raised alarms, with the virus already
claiming two lives and infecting two others. In response to this outbreak, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has agreed to provide monoclonal antibodies necessary for treating Nipah patients.
The Nipah virus is known to cause severe illness and has a history of outbreaks in India. Vigilance and proactive measures are crucial to containing its spread.
The first confirmed case of Nipah in this outbreak was a nine-year-old boy. The death of the first victim on August 30 was initially attributed to liver cirrhosis comorbidity, but subsequent cases have raised concerns about the virus's presence in the region.
There were two other major outbreaks of the Nipah virus in Kerala: one in 2018 and one in 2021. In 2018, there were
reports of the virus outbreak from several parts of East Asia, particularly Bangladesh.
Bangladesh also holds the highest mortality due to Nipah virus infections and outbreaks there are typically seen in the winter. The most recent outbreak, before the ongoing Kerala one, occurred in Bangladesh during January and February 2023 with a total of 11 cases and eight deaths.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that Nipah virus outbreaks are seasonal in Bangladesh with cases usually occurring annually between December and May.
"Since the report of the first case in 2001, the number of yearly cases has ranged from zero to 67, though in the last five years, reported cases have been comparatively lower ranging from zero in 2016 to eight in 2019," the WHO says on its
website.
The Nipah virus was first identified in 1998-99 when an outbreak of neurological and respiratory disease on pig farms in Malaysia led to the death of 108 humans out of a total of 265 cases.
To tackle the situation, teams from the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, are set to establish a mobile laboratory at Kozhikode Medical College. In addition to the NIV teams, epidemiologists from Chennai are also expected to arrive in Kerala to assist with the assessment of the situation.
Health Minister Veena George also outlined various measures taken to combat the Nipah virus including intensive surveillance, contact tracing, categorisation of individuals into low and high-risk groups, the establishment of isolation facilities, demarcating containment zones, and the procurement of medicines from the ICMR for infected individuals.
The situation has prompted authorities to declare several village panchayats in Kozhikode district, including Atanchery, Maruthonkara, Tiruvallur, Kuttiyadi, Kayakkodi, Villyapalli, and Kavilumpara, as containment zones to prevent further spread of the
virus.
