Nipah virus in Kerala: Schools, colleges, tuition centres in Kozhikode, Beypore harbour closed indefinitely. Top updates
2 min read 16 Sep 2023, 04:09 PM ISTKerala government identifies patient zero of Nipah virus outbreak, continues contact tracing. Schools closed for a week. 1,080 people in contact list.
PremiumThe Kerala government has successfully identified that man who was the patient zero or index case of the Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala. The state government has now began looking for the source and place from where he got infected by seeking details of his mobile tower locations. The man died on August 30 and it was only much later it was found that he was infected with Nipah.
His nine-year-old son and brother-in-law are still undergoing treatment along with two others, one of them a health worker, with whom he came into contact at a hospital.
The state government has instructed that all educational institutes in Kerala's Kozhikode will remain shut indefinitely, according to a CNBC report. This includes schools, professional colleges, and tuition centres.
Health minister Veena George has said that at present, the contact list of infected persons has 1,080 people while 130 people have been newly included today in the list. Out of all this 327 people in the list are health workers.
A total of 29 people in other districts are in the contact list of Nipah-infected people. Among them, 22 are from Malappuram, one from Wayanad and three each from Kannur and Thrissur, said Veena George.
The government is also focusing on completing contact tracing in respect of the sixth person who was confirmed having Nipah virus, on Friday, to have been infected by the virus.
Veena George also said that there were no new positive cases and in a relief for the state, 94 samples -- of persons from the high-risk contact list -- have come back negative for the virus.
Meanwhile, 21 people at the Kozhikode medical college and two kids at the Institute of Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) were in isolation, George said. Everyone, including a nine-year-old boy on a ventilator, who is under treatment for the virus or is in isolation are stable, she added.
The minister said that all those infected are part of the first wave of the infection which has manifested in two clusters -- one being the two family members of the man who was the index case and the second being the persons who came into contact with him at the hospital he went for treatment.
Kozhikode city mayor Beena Philip, meanwhile, said all the wards where the man, who was the index case, went have been declared as containment zones. "
Kozhikode District Collector A Geetha said that arrangements have been made for online classes in educational institutions for the coming week and instructed students not to engage in holiday-related celebrations.
The Collector also said that Beypore harbour will remain closed till further orders as it falls in one of the containment zones and provided two alternative locations for landing fishing vessels and sale of the catch.
The Centre on Friday decided to procure from Australia 20 more doses of monoclonal antibody through the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for treatment of those infected by Nipah.
The Kerala Health department had on Friday said it has identified a total of 1,080 people in the contact list of the positive patients and has started collecting samples.
This is the fourth time the Nipah viral infection has been confirmed in the state. It was detected in Kozhikode in 2018 and 2021 and in Ernakulam in 2019. The World Health Organisation and ICMR studies have found that the entire state, not just Kozhikode, is prone to such infections.
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