Karnataka reports two cases of Nipah as Kerala toll reaches 12
kochi — Indian health officials were checking on Wednesday if a rare, brain-damaging virus had spread to a second state after two suspected cases reported in Karnataka, as the death toll in adjacent Kerala, where the outbreak began, rose to 12.
There is no vaccine for the Nipah virus, carried by fruit bats and spread through contact with bodily fluids, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Treatment for the virus, which has a mortality rate of about 70 per cent, is supportive care.
Symptoms of the virus surfaced in a 20-year-old woman and a 75-year-old man in the port city of Mangalore after they travelled to neighbouring Kerala and had contact with infected patients, said Rajesh B.V., a health official in Karnataka.
“They are not confirmed Nipah cases yet, so there is no need to panic,” he said by telephone. “The situation is under control.”
The patients are being treated and samples of their blood have been sent for screening, with results expected by Thursday, he added. Health officials investigating the outbreak in Kerala, where the first death happened on Friday, have traced it to a well infested with bats from which the victims drew water.
Human-to-human transmission of the virus has been recorded in previous outbreaks in India that killed as many as 50 people.
Surveillance by the Kerala government is being conducted in Kozhikode district, from where most of the cases were reported, and in the neighbouring districts of Malappuram, Wayanad and Kannur, it said.
“The health department is taking effective steps for management of reported cases and surveillance through tracing of the contact of these persons. The situation remains under control,” the advisory said.
Meanwhile, 2,000 Ribavirin tablets, an antiviral medicine, have already reached Kozhikode.
Another batch of 8,000 tablets are expected to be delivered later in the day, Health department sources said.
Twelve persons have died of Nipah virus so far in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts. The number includes two persons who died of high fever and suspected to have contracted the virus.
A nurse who treated three of the Kerala victims succumbed to the infection on Monday, Health Minister K.K. Shailaja told a news briefing, where she announced payment of compensation to her family and others who lost family members to the infection.