Nipah deaths: Centre rushes team to Kerala

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 21

The Centre today rushed a team of specialists to investigate the outbreak of Nipah virus infection in Kerala, claiming nine lives. Health Minister JP Nadda, in Geneva to attend the World Health Assembly which began on Monday, responded swiftly — forming a team of researchers to review the scale of the problem.

The team includes Surjit Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control; SK Jain, Head Epidemiology, NCDC; P Ravindran, Director, Emergency Medical Relief, and Naveen Gupta, Head Zoonosis, NCDC, along with two clinicians and an expert from the Ministry of Animal Husbandry.

Nadda said in a statement from Geneva he had spoken to the Kerala Health Minister. Back in Delhi, there was considerable concern around the nature of the infection. There is no cure for Nipah virus and supportive care is the only option.

According to the World Health Organisation, Nipah virus (NiV) infection is a newly emerging zoonosis that causes severe diseases in both animals and humans. The natural host of the virus are fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family, Pteropus genus.

“NiV was first identified during an outbreak of a disease in Kampung Sungai Nipah, Malaysia, in 1998. On this occasion, pigs were the intermediate hosts. However, in subsequent NiV outbreaks, there were no intermediate hosts. In Bangladesh in 2004, humans were infected with NiV as a result of consuming date palm sap contaminated by infected fruit bats. Human-to-human transmission has also been documented, including in a hospital setting in India,” the WHO says.

No vaccine, only supportive care

• NiV infection in humans has a range of clinical presentations from asymptomatic infection to acute respiratory syndrome leading to fatal encephalitis 
• It is also capable of causing disease in pigs and other domestic animals
• There is no vaccine for either humans or animals; the primary treatment is intensive supportive care