One person dies from Nipah virus in the Indian state of Kerala, the state’s health minister says on local television

KOCHI, India (Reuters) – Authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala are taking preventive measures after a 14-year-old boy died of the Nipah virus and 60 people were identified as high-risk patients, the state health minister said on Sunday.

Parts of Kerala are among the world’s most at risk of outbreaks of the virus, a Reuters investigation found last year. Nipah, which comes from fruit bats and animals such as pigs, can cause fatal, brain-swelling fevers in humans.

Nipah is classified as a priority pathogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) because it has the potential to cause an epidemic. There is no vaccine to prevent the infection and no treatment to cure it.

“The infected boy died of cardiac arrest on Sunday,” state Health Minister Veena George told local television reporters in Malayalam.

She had previously said in a statement on Saturday that the government had ordered the establishment of 25 committees to identify and isolate affected persons as part of the Nipah control.

Dr Anoop Kumar, head of critical care medicine at Aster MIMS Hospital in Calicut, said a schoolboy had been diagnosed as a positive case of Nipah and people who had been in contact with him were being monitored.

“At present, there is only a minimal chance of an outbreak of the Nipah virus,” he said, adding that the situation would be monitored over the next seven to 10 days.

The boy’s primary contact list includes 214 people, the statement said. Among them, 60 people are in the high-risk category, it said. Isolation wards have been set up in health facilities to treat the patients.

Family members of the affected patient have been admitted to a local hospital for observation after a case of the Nipah virus was confirmed in Malappuram, a town about 350 kilometers from Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram, local media reports said. Other people who may be at risk have been asked to isolate themselves at home.

The state government said it was working to trace affected people to contain the spread of the virus. Nipah has been linked to the deaths of dozens of people in Kerala since it first appeared in the state in 2018.

The virus was first discovered in Malaysia 25 years ago and has led to outbreaks in Bangladesh, India and Singapore.

(Reporting by Sivaram Venkirasubramanian in Kochi and Manoj Kumar in New Delhi; Editing by Tom Hogue)