Fear, Scare, Curiosity: Nipah Virus raises death toll to 18, Health Ministry issues advisory

Thiruvananthapuram, June 4: Kerala has pumped up much curiosity and tension level among the people with the outburst of Nipah Virus. Creating havoc in the state the virus has risen the death toll to killing almost 16 people.

Health department sources said 18 people have tested positive for the Nipah virus so far, of who 16 have died. Two are undergoing treatment. According to the sources, the number of samples tested for Nipah virus is 196, of which 178 have tested negative. The virus had claimed two lives on May 30.

In the second phase of the infection also very few cases have come up, the release said adding the deaths of two patients one each at Kannur and Wayanad were not due to the virus. Until the virus was fully brought under control, the team of expert doctors from Thiruvananthapuram would continue to monitor the situation at Kozhikode, the meeting decided.

 

Monitoring by Indian Council for Medical Research and National Institute of Epidemiology will also continue in Kozhikode. Around 2,000 people are under the observation of the health department. They are suspected to have come in contact with the infected persons.

 

The chief minister also directed the Kozhikode and Malappuram district collectors to deliver free kits of rice and other essential food articles to the homes of those under observation and those in need of them. Three fruit-eating bats, their fecal and urine samples have been sent for testing at the National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal today, official sources said.

Earlier, samples of three insectivorous bats caught from an unused well of the Moosa family here, which lost three members to the Nipah virus, were sent to the Bhopal laboratory along with samples of pigs, goats and cattle in a 5 km radius of the affected area and all of them tested negative, the sources said.

Re-opening of schools and colleges in Kozhikode and Malappuram has been deferred to June 12 as a precautionary measure and the Public Service Commission has postponed all examinations.