Kerala starts tracing travel map of first Nipah victim, now dead

The Kerala government on Saturday (September 16) began finding out where the man who caused the Nipah virus outbreak in the state got infected.

Kerala health minister Veena Gorge said she was trying to determine the origin by seeking details of the mobile tower locations of the patient zero.

At the same time, a central government team was collecting bat samples to ascertain the viral load.

The man identified as the index case 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.

Delhi’s pat

The minister said Kerala's efforts to combat the virus outbreak were appreciated by the central team.

The government was also focusing on completing contact tracing in respect of the sixth person who was confirmed on Friday to have been infected by the virus, the minister told reporters in Kozhikode.

She said there were no new positive case and that 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 children at the Institute of Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) were in isolation, George said.

The condition of everyone, including a nine-year-old boy on a ventilator, is said to be stable.

Two clusters

The minister said all those infected were 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.

The second fatality due to Nipah occurred on September 11 and the victim had come into contact with the man who was the index case at the same hospital as the others, George said.

Kerala has requested the Centre's support for expediting the process required for importing the monoclonal antibody.

Kozhikode mayor Beena Philip said all the wards where the man who was the index case went have been declared as containment zones.

"He has moved around a lot. Therefore, the contact list is expected to get bigger," she said.

Collector’s warning

Kozhikode District Collector A Geetha said arrangements have been made for online classes in educational institutions for the coming week. She told 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.

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.

This is the fourth time the viral infection has been confirmed in the state. It was detected in Kozhikode in 2018 and 2021 and in Ernakulam in 2019.

(With agency inputs)