New Delhi, May 22 (TNS): A deadly virus carried by fruit bats and pigs has killed at least five people in southern India and more than 90 people are in quarantine, a health official said Tuesday.
The death toll rose from three overnight and authorities ordered emergency measures to control the outbreak.
“We can confirm that five people have died from the Nipah virus,” Kerala state health surveillance officer K.J. Reena told media.
Nine people have been admitted to hospital with symptoms resembling the virus, which the World Health Organisation says is fatal in 70 percent of cases, Reena added. One of the nine has tested positive for Nipah.
“We traced 94 people who had come in contact with the ones who died and they have been quarantined as a precaution,” Reena added. There is no vaccination for Nipah which has killed more than 260 people in Malaysia, Bangladesh and India in outbreaks since 1998.
The virus induces flu-like symptoms that lead to an agonizing encephalitis and coma. The transmission of Nipah virus takes place through direct contact with infected bats, pigs, or from other NiV-infected people.
In March this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) had come out with a list to identify, prioritize and accelerate research and development for diseases that lack efficacious drugs and/or vaccines, and pose public health risk. Nipah virus was one of them.
According to the report, part of the 2018 annual review of R&D Blueprint, these diseases pose major public health risks and further research and development is needed, including surveillance and diagnostics.
The seven other potential global disease threats on the WHO list, each lacking an effective drug or vaccine, were Disease X, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF); Ebola virus disease and Mar-burg virus disease; Lassa fever; Middle East respiratory syndrome corona-virus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS); and Zika.
