Alert in southern India after two dead and several hospitalized by the deadly Nipah virus

2023-09-15 09:47:38

Updated Friday, September 15, 2023 – 09:47

There is no vaccine and it has a mortality rate of 70%

Workers carry a body of an infected person from Nipah.AFPIn 2018 Ten deaths in India due to an outbreak of the Nipah virus

Authorities in a region in southern India have raised the alert after confirming the reaparicin of the deadly Nipah virus (NiV), which has caused at least two deaths and three injuries in this new outbreak, while measures are being taken to prevent the spread.

Authorities have closed some schools in at least seven villages in the Kozhikode district of the southern state of Kerala, which have been declared as containment zones, says Kerala Health Minister Veena George in a parliamentary session, according to the NDTV news channel.

Experts have been deployed to the southern Indian state of Kerala to collect fluid samples from bats and fruit trees, as both can carry the virus. “We are doing tests on human beings (…) and, at the same time, experts are collecting samples of fluids from forested areas that could be the hot spot for the spread,” said Veena George, state Health Minister.

After call an emergency meeting To analyze the situation, George assures that they are increasing the response capacity in Kozhikode, where mobile units will be installed to reinforce the capacity of medical centers and epidemiological studies will be carried out, he adds.

The state has also issued a series of recommendations to prevent contagion, as well as a prevention plan in case of suffering symptoms from this virus, which so far has caused the death of at least two people, the country’s Minister of Health, Mansukh Mandaviya, tells the press. India detected the first outbreak of this virus in June 2018, when 17 deaths were recorded precisely in the affected districts of Kozhikode and Mallapuram, in Kerala.

The initial symptoms are high fever, headache, respiratory complications and muscle pain, while, in a more advanced state, the disease can cause encephalitis. One of the ways the virus is transmitted is through the body fluids of an infected person such as saliva and blood.

There is no preventive vaccine, so doctors can only deal with symptomatic treatment, and the mortality rate is up to 70%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The World Health Organization (WHO) has included Nipah on the list of priority diseases to investigate for its epidemic potential, along with Bola or Zika.