More than 200 people are being monitored by health authorities and considered “high risk of contamination” cases, after the death of a teenager from his infection with the Nipah virus on Saturday.
Published on 07/23/2024 8:16 p.m. Updated on 07/24/2024 6:47 a.m.
Reading time: 3 min Health workers are asked to take precautionary measures to care for patients identified as Nipah virus contacts in southern India in September 2023. (AFP)
Indian health officials fear the outbreak of a new epidemic. Sixty people have been identified as possible cases in “high risk of contamination”after coming into contact with a 14-year-old boy carrying the Nipah virus.
The teenager died of cardiac arrest on Saturday, July 21, a day after testing positive for Nipah virus infection. The 60 contact cases have been isolated in health facilities, India’s health ministry said. The disease first appeared in the late 1990s in Southeast Asia.
The virus in question is originally transmitted from pigs and bats to humans. Infection can also occur after consuming contaminated food. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers Nipah as a “priority pathogen”just like Covid-19 and the Ebola virus. The reason is its epidemic potential: there is no vaccine to prevent infection, nor treatment to cure it. According to the WHO, its mortality rate is between 40% and 75%.
The disease first appeared in domestic pigs in Malaysia and Singapore in 1998 and 1999, according to World Organization for Animal HealthAt the time, more than a million animals had been culled to combat the spread of the disease, and herders had been infected. The symptoms that accompany a Nipah virus infection are respiratory and sometimes neurological: it causes a fatal fever that can lead to brain damage.
“Recent cases of Nipah virus disease are primarily associated with human-to-human and bat-to-human transmission.“, the WHO said. Nipah has been linked to the deaths of dozens of people in Kerala, southern India, since it first emerged in the state in 2018. As a result, health authorities have been working to trace all those affected in recent days in an effort to stem its spread.
Kerala health authorities have asked residents to follow certain precautionary measures. For example, people are advised to wear masks outdoors and avoid visiting people who are hospitalized. The Indian government has also ordered the creation of 25 committees to identify and isolate those affected. More than 200 people are currently listed as close contacts and are isolated at home.
