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Kochi (Reuters)
The health minister of the southern Indian state of Kerala said on Sunday that a 14-year-old boy had died from Nipah virus and that state authorities were taking precautionary measures and had identified 60 children who had come in contact with him as those most vulnerable to the disease.
A Reuters investigation report last year showed that parts of Kerala were among the most at risk of a virus outbreak in the world.
Transmitted by animals such as fruit bats and pigs, Nipah virus can cause fever and swelling of the brain in humans, which can lead to death.
The World Health Organization has classified the virus as a priority disease due to its ability to spread epidemically. There is no vaccine to prevent infection and no treatment for the infection.
The state’s health minister, Veena George, told local television reporters that “the injured boy died of a heart attack on Sunday.”
The minister announced in a statement yesterday (Saturday) that the government has ordered the formation of 25 committees to identify and isolate contacts as part of measures to contain the Nipah virus.
The statement also said that there are 214 people on the boy’s list of primary contacts, including 60 people in the high-risk group, and the health agency has allocated an isolation ward to treat the patients.
Nipah infections have been linked to dozens of deaths in Kerala since the virus first emerged in 2018.
The virus was first discovered in Malaysia 25 years ago and has since led to hotspots in Bangladesh, India and Singapore.
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