Union Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan has urged people not to panic after the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, confirmed that a 23-year old student from Kerala has been tested positive for the Nipah virus. The confirmation came at around midnight, the minister said. "Everything that needs to be done in a scientific manner has been initiated, even before the confirmation came," said Dr Harshvardhan, as he took charge of the Ministry of Science and Technology on Tuesday. "The is no need to panic," he said. He cautioned against spreading panic, too.
The minister said that he had initiated inquiry into the incident immediately after he took charge of the health ministry on Monday. He is in constant touch with Kerala's Health Minister K.K. Shailaja regarding the matter. "Yesterday itself a team of six experts from Delhi, including epidemiologists and scientists, had headed to Kerala. We have flown monoclonal antibodies to Kerala. All the 86 people that the patient was in touch with have been traced and are being monitored. We are also in touch with the wildlife department to subject bats for testing (fruit bats are the natural hosts for the nipah virus)."
READ: Nipah: Prevention, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment
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Last year, the viral outbreak claimed 17 lives in Kerala. First identified in 1999 in Malaysia, nipah gets its name form a village in Malaysia where it was first detected. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there is no known cure for the disease, the patient has to be treated symptomatically. The virus spreads directly from bats to humans, or from bats to other animals like pigs and then to humans. In humans, it is known to spread from one person to another through direct contact. Although there have not been too many outbreaks of the infection, the fact that it spreads so easily from animal to animal and from animal to human makes it a public health hazard.
While Malaysia has reported only one outbreak of 1999, there have been regular outbreaks in Bangladesh and eastern India. Experts advocate strict quarantining of infected people as in Siliguri the disease has been reported to have spread to caregivers themselves.
In India, one of the main routes for the spread of infections from host to human is through consumption of date palm juice. Bats regularly frequent these trees. Both the juice in its fresh and fermented form are popular drinks. Date syrup jaggery is another popular food item prepared from the juice. All these could be infected.