As Kerala battles the return of the deadly Nipah virus, the Union Health Minister has met the state health minister, K. K. Shailaja and assured the Centre's support to the state. Though the state has got a breather after seven suspected cases were confirmed “negative” for the virus, both the Centre and state authorities have claimed to be on the watch and monitoring the situation regularly. Earlier today, the Union health ministry confirmed that the last suspected patient of Nipah virus has tested negative. A team of experts from the ICMR and the health ministry are already stationed in Kerala to support investigation and management of the disease.
Experts in the field have also lauded Kerala for handling the disease well in the last outbreak in June 2018.
Last June, the virus struck one family in Kerala, challenging the entire state's public health infrastructure, and claiming 17 lives, including that of a health worker. Then, virologists at the National Institute of Virology, Pune and the Manipal Virus Research Centre ran tests for several other suspects—including encephalitis, rabies, pulmonary leptospirosis—before they finally concluded that the state had indeed been struck by the rare Nipah virus.
The state public health infrastructure swung into action, and were able to control the spread of the deadly infection by following disease management protocols, and also giving out clear information to the media and the public at large.
The lessons from the last outbreak have helped the state control the spread of the infection by tracing every person that the index case (first affected patient) met. The condition of the index case is stable, the Union health ministry has confirmed. Nipah virus is known to result in high mortality rates, and there's no vaccine to prevent the disease.
After the 2018 outbreak of Nipah in Kerala, the country has been struck by at least two outbreaks—Zika virus in late 2018, and the swine flu outbreak (influenza A (H1N1)pdm09) early this year.
Earlier this month, the ICMR and WHO also held a workshop to identify and initiate development of sites for implementing clinical trials with monoclonal antibodies for treating Nipah virus disease, and developing a consortium for outbreak response and research on Nipah virus with key stakeholder countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Experts say that strengthening local surveillance networks, better manpower and effective co-ordination between outbreak control units at state and centre level would help the country deal better with these outbreaks.
