The Kerala health department on Saturday confirmed that a 14-year-old boy from Malappuram district has tested positive for Nipah virus, adding that it is the fifth time since 2018 that the state has reported the infection.
Health Minister Veena George told the media that the Class 9 student, a resident of Pandikkad in Malappuram district, has been put on life support at a private hospital in Kozhikode as he is in a critical condition. “His test reports from the Kozhikode laboratory, Kerala, have confirmed Nipah infection in his samples. Later, the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune also confirmed this,” George said.
A control room has already been opened in Malappuram district to monitor the situation, said the state health minister.
George further said: “All the steps have been in place, even before test reports of the boy arrived. A 30-bed isolation ward will be opened at the government medical college hospital in Manjeri. All primary, secondary and high-risk contacts of the boy will now be isolated. A lockdown will be imposed at a few wards under Pandikkad panchayat… People living in the region are advised to wear masks and avoid unnecessary visits to hospitals.”
According to the standard operating procedure (SOP), 25 committees have been set up to address the situation. “NIV-Pune has sent monoclonal antibody doses — procured last time from Australia and likely to arrive in Kerala on Sunday — for the boy’s treatment,” George said.
The minor boy, the first such patient in the state, was admitted to a local clinic on July 12, two days after he started suffering from fever. The next day, he was shifted to a hospital in Pandikkad village. Later, he was shifted back to the Malappuram hospital on July 15, and then to a private hospital in the district’s Perinthalmanna; on Friday, he was admitted to a private hospital in Kozhikode. After his reports came positive for Nipah, the boy was shifted to the government medical college hospital in Kozhikode on Saturday.
Following the confirmation of the first Nipah case in Kerala, officials of the state health department and Pandikkad panchayat are preparing a route map to ascertain places the boy had visited.
According to Pandikkad panchayat member N T Surendran, the local authorities are clueless about how the boy contracted the Nipah virus. “…the boy used to bathe in local water bodies. Everyone in the village feared he had amebic encephalitis,” Surendran said.
Since 2018, Kerala has reported five Nipah outbreaks, with only six out of the total 26 patients surviving till date — one each in Kozhikode (2018) and Kochi (2019), and four in Kozhikode (2023). Seventeen of the total 18 infected patients had died in 2018, one (2021), and two (2023). Six Nipah cases were reported in Kozhikode in September 2023, with two of them, including the index case, losing the battle to the virus by the time they were diagnosed.
To be sure, fruit bats are known as the reservoirs of Nipah virus. During the previous Nipah outbreaks in Kerala, cases were reported from areas having fruit bats; prima facie, it was found that the index cases were exposed to bat-eaten fruits, which led to the infection.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 20-07-2024 at 10:30 IST
