DNA Edit: Nipah scare - Given Kerala’s record, outbreak will be controlled soon

Nipah and Kerala, it appears, go hand in hand. A year after the state contained an outbreak of this virus in its northern districts that had claimed 17 lives, the government has sounded an alarm after a fresh case of virus was confirmed.

High alert has been sounded in some districts after the state government received confirmation of the virus in fluid samples of a suspected case sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. Officials said 311 people, who were in touch with the suspect, a resident of Ernakulam, had been placed under home quarantine.

Given Kerala’s track record last time, it would be fair to say that sooner or later, they will get a handle on the situation and the outbreak controlled soon. The newly detected case could actually be a result of intensified preventive and containment efforts after last year’s outbreak.

There has been an increased awareness and vigilance in the community, which has helped in early detection this time. Scientists say so far, Nipah has proved to be an incurable inflection in human beings, which can sometimes prove to be fatal.

There is no treatment available as of now for humans or animals, nor has any vaccine been invented that can tackle Nipah. The infection is generally transmitted from animals to human beings, mainly from bats and pigs. Human-to-human transmission is also possible, and so is transmission from contaminated food.

Experts say that the natural host of the virus are fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family and Pteropous genus, widely found in South and South East Asia. Studies by the NIV have revealed that these were the most likely source of human infection in 2018 and this particular strain might have been circulating in the local bat population. 

However, the actual source of the current infection is not known, making the challenge of containing this virus a herculean task. Scientists are currently working on finding the epidemiological link of the outbreak. The trouble with containing a virus like Nipah is manifold.

Patients show no symptoms of the infection, making it difficult to detect, or develop acute respiratory problems and even encephalitis which often become fatal. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the infection has been found to be fatal in 40 per cent  to 75 per cent of the infected patients.

The 2018 Nipah outbreak was confined to two Kerala districts, Kozhikode and Malappuram. Kerala is by no chance the first sighting of Nipah virus in India. The first outbreak was reported in 2001 in Siliguri, West Bengal, where more than 30 people were hospitalised with suspected infection.

Other cases were detected in 2007 in West Bengal’s Nadia district. Again, over 30 cases of fever with acute respiratory distress and/or neurological symptoms were reported, five of which turned out to be fatal.

Last year, after the outbreak in Kerala, doctors tested samples from suspected cases in Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra. Happily, all of them tested negative. The NIV has advised extreme care for healthcare workers and caregivers, including double gloves and fluid-resistant gown. Such is the scare.