Incurable Nipah virus kills teenager in India

Authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala are taking preventive steps after a 14-year-old boy died from the Nipah virus and 60 people have been identified as high-risk, the health minister said on Sunday.

A Reuters investigation last year showed that parts of Kerala were among the most at-risk areas in the world for an outbreak of the virus. The Nipah virus, which comes from fruit bats and animals such as pigs, can cause a deadly fever that leads to brain swelling in humans.

The World Health Organization classifies Nipah virus as a priority pathogen because of its potential to cause a pandemic. There is no vaccine to prevent infection and no treatment to cure it.

“The injured boy died on Sunday after suffering a cardiac arrest,” state Health Minister Veena George told local television reporters, speaking in Malayalam.

Earlier, in a statement on Saturday, it said that as part of the control of the Nipah virus, the government had issued orders to set up 25 committees to identify and isolate affected people.

One positive case of Nipah virus has been diagnosed in a school boy and people who came in contact with him are being monitored, said Dr Anup Kumar, director of critical care medicine at Aster MIMS Hospital in Calicut.

“There is little chance of a Nipah virus outbreak at this stage,” he said, adding that the situation would be monitored over the next seven to 10 days.

The statement said that the list of the boy’s main contacts includes 214 people, including 60 people in the most vulnerable category, and isolation wards have been set up in health institutions to treat patients.

Local media reports said the patient’s family members were being held in a local hospital for observation after a case of Nipah virus was confirmed in Malappuram, a town about 220 miles from Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram. Other people at risk have been asked to isolate themselves at home.

The state government said it was tracing any infected people to contain the spread of the virus. The Nipah virus has been linked to dozens of deaths in Kerala since it first emerged in the state in 2018.

The virus was first identified 25 years ago in Malaysia and has caused outbreaks in Bangladesh, India and Singapore.