Authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala are taking preventive measures after a 14-year-old boy died from the Nipah virus and 60 people were identified as high-risk patients, the state’s health minister said on Sunday (21).
Parts of Kerala are among the most at risk for outbreaks of the virus, a Reuters investigation last year showed. Nipah, which comes from fruit bats and animals such as pigs, can cause a deadly fever and brain swelling in humans.
Nipah is classified as a priority pathogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to its potential to trigger an epidemic. There is no vaccine to prevent the infection and no treatment to cure it.
“The infected boy died on Sunday after a cardiac arrest,” Veena George, the state’s health minister, said, speaking in Malayalam.
Earlier, in a statement on Saturday, she said that as part of Nipah control, the government has issued orders to set up 25 committees to identify and isolate affected people.
Dr Anoop Kumar, director of critical care medicine at Aster MIMS Hospital in Calicut, said a positive case of Nipah had been diagnosed in a school boy and people who had been in contact with him were being monitored.
“There is minimal chance of a Nipah virus outbreak at this stage,” he said, adding that the situation would be monitored over the next seven to ten days.
There are 214 people on the boy’s primary contact list, the statement said. Among them, 60 are in the high-risk category, it said, and isolation rooms have been set up in health institutions to treat the patients.
The family members of the affected patient have been kept at a local hospital for observation after a case of Nipah virus was confirmed in Malappuram, a city about 350 km away. Others who could be at risk have been asked to isolate themselves at home.
The state government said it was working to trace any affected person to contain the spread of the virus. Nipah has been linked to the deaths of dozens of people in Kerala since it first emerged in the state in 2018.
The virus was first identified 25 years ago in Malaysia and has led to outbreaks in Bangladesh, India and Singapore.
Source: CNN Brasil
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