Nipah: ‘This Was Key Info on Outbreak…’ Kerala Health Minister on First Death, Protocols | Exclusive

Kerala health minister Veena George, who has been camping in Kozhikode where the latest cases of Nipah virus have been reported, says her department has aggressively begun contact tracing and creating containment zones to control the outbreak.

In an exclusive interview with News18, she spoke of how swiftly the state health ministry began tracking, tracing, and quarantining the relatives and contacts of the two victims who succumbed to the virus in the past two months.

This is Kerala’s fourth outbreak of the virus since 2018; this variant has been identified as similar to the Bangladesh variant.

George said while there have been no new Nipah cases reported, her department has achieved a major milestone as it has managed to trace the ‘index case’ or the person who had contracted the virus first.

Edited interview

Q: How is the situation now?

The situation in Kozhikode is totally under control. So far, we could identify six positive cases and 96 samples from those who were listed as 96 contacts; their samples have been found negative.

Q: How did the government identify this as a Nipah Virus case?

It was on the 11th of this month that we got information from a private hospital that there are two unusual fever cases and two of them were children. At that moment itself, I asked my director of health services, Dr. Reena, to conduct a study on this, also surveillance in the area, and to contact the private hospital authorities. That day itself, we could do the surveillance, and we did a tough case study, and we found that these cases were close to the place where we saw the case of Nipah as reported in 2018.

The father of these children died on the 30th of last month. The surveillance and other details we received from the private hospital led us to think that the cases can be Nipah. So, we sent the samples to the microbiology lab at the medical college in Kozhikode. The medical college has BSL level II lab and level 3 facilities, and procedures can be done there. A high-level meeting convened in Thiruvananthapuram, where principal excretory, NHM director, other officials and I participated.

At the same time, we got the information from a private hospital that a man is dead and he also had a fever. The victim was in his 40s. So, we asked the private hospital authorities to keep the body in the mortuary with the protocol-type packing until the sample of the person is also tested.

By 11.30-12 am, the samples were positive. Then, we sent the samples to NIV Pune for the confirmatory test, but at the moment itself, we had already decided to observe the Nipah protocols and asked the health system to observe the guidelines. We asked them to do so on treatment, isolation, contact tracing, everything.

Now, there are six positive cases, the two who died — on August 30 and August 11– and four patients under treatment are stable. One child, who is under ventilator, is also stable now. His status is slightly improving.

Q: You have been camping in Kozhikode and taking stock of the situation. What measures have been taken by the health ministry to keep a check on this outbreak?

On the 11th itself, the directors of health services and medical education and I reached Kozhikode. On the 12th, we constituted 19 core teams, as per the Nipah guidelines. We started contact tracing and also categorising the suspects as high risk and low risk, etc. The very important thing is that we could get the sample of the man who died on the 30th from the private hospital where he was treated for fever. We sent the sample to NIV Pune, and we found the sample to be positive. That was very important information regarding this outbreak. That we could find the index case, and we could prove it through clinical and lab testing that the sample was positive. We also have traced 1,080 persons and categorised them under high and low-risk categories. We have decided to do the sample testing of all those who are high risk.

Q: States like neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are on alert and issued guidelines while keeping a strict vigil on their borders. How do you see the situation, is it likely to spread?

There is nothing to worry about because we have indeed fielded the persons who have come in contact with those who were positive. We have used all the sources, CCTV footage, sought the help of the police department to locate the locations of the positive patients, especially the index case to identify the source also. There is nothing to worry about, and we are keeping a close vigil. The health system, in Kozhikode district and the nearby districts of Wayanad, Malappuram, and Kannur, are on alert, and there is nothing to worry about, and everything is taken care of.