By Shankar Raj*
Thiruvananthapuram: A high health alert has been issued in the northern district of Malappuram in Kerala following the outbreak of the dangerous Nipah virus which had claimed 17 lives in 2018.
While the outbreaks earlier were in Kozhikode, this time it was in Pandikad in Malappuram where a 14-year-old boy got infected and is battling for his life in Kozhikode Medical College.
The State’s virology lab has confirmed that the boy’s samples had the Nipah virus. A fresh sample has been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune for confirmation. The results are expected to come on Sunday, Health Minister Veena George told the media in Kozhikode.
It has been decided to create a 3 km containment zone around Pandikad as per national protocol, the minister said.
The boy reportedly got infected by the virus while on a school trip to Wayanad and he is suspected to have eaten a fruit that was bitten by a bat. Bats are suspected to be the prime source of the virus. It may be mentioned that the Nipah virus is a bat-borne, zoonotic virus which can infect humans and other animals. The disease caused by Nipah virus infection has a very high mortality rate.
The minister said efforts are on to trace all the primary contacts of the boy and isolate them as early as possible.
The NIV will be sending a mobile lab with experts to Malappuram, the minister added.
Nipah outbreaks were reported earlier in Kozhikode district in 2018, 2021, and 2023, and in Ernakulam district in 2019, and the presence of Nipah virus antibodies had been detected in bats in Kozhikode, Wayanad, Idukki, Malappuram, and Ernakulam districts. However, in October last year, the World Health Organization declared that there were no new cases of the deadly virus since September 15, 2023, in Kerala.
*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
