Kerala has so far confirmed a total of six cases of Nipah infection since the latest outbreak in the Kozhikode district.
Kerala health minister Veena George on Monday said no fresh cases of the brain-damaging Nipah virus have been reported and 61 samples taken of ‘high-risk’ contacts, including nurses, have tested negative.
Kerala has so far confirmed a total of six cases of Nipah infection since the latest outbreak in the Kozhikode district. Two individuals lost their lives due to the virus, bringing the number of active cases down to four.
Stringent measures, including contact tracing, quarantine protocols, and public awareness campaigns, have been implemented in Kozhikode to curb the outbreak's progression.
Here are the latest updates on the virus:
1.The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and World Health Organisation conducted studies and it was found that nine states in India have the probability of Nipah occurrence and Kerala is one among them, George said.
2.A total of 1,233 contacts, of the people infected, have been identified and the Kerala government has categorised them as ‘high-risk’ contacts, 352, and low-risk contacts. All of them are under isolation.
3.The state government has set up a control room to battle the virus.
4.The Kerala government has set up 19 teams in the core committee as per the Nipah protocol, which was modified in 2021 and in 2023. While the central teams are in the field and have been surveying all the relevant locations.
5.The results of the genomic sequencing, in order to confirm that there was no second wave of the Nipah outbreak, will be available by evening or on Tuesday, George said speaking to PTI.
6.As per George, samples from around 36 bats have been sent to Pune's National Institute of Virology (NIV) to discover the presence of Nipah virus among mammals.
7.The virus found in Kerala has been identified as the Indian Genotype or I-Genotype and is similar to the strain found in Bangladesh. There are two known strains of the Nipah Virus — one is Malaysian and the other from Bangladesh.
8.While the incubation period of the Nipah virus — including containment and quarantine — is 21 days, the Kerala government has enforced a double incubation period of 42 days since the last positive case of the virus reported.
9.George said the situation in Kerala is under control. All the new samples tested of the contacts of the infected victims — today, yesterday, and day before yesterday — have come out to be negative.