Nipah death in Kerala: Two health workers symptomatic, 20 contacts at high risk

Kozhikode: Kerala's Health Minister Veena George on Sunday confirmed that two health workers in the contact list of the 12-year-old boy, who succumbed to the Nipah virus in Kozhikode district are symptomatic and 20 people in the list belong to the high-risk primary contact.

"Two health workers who came in contact with the 12-year-old boy are also showing symptoms of getting infected by the virus. One of them is a staff employee at the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital, and the other is a staff member at a private hospital in Kozhikode where the boy was under treatment," George said to reporters.

V Jayasree, Kozhikode District Medical Officer said that the contact list of the boy has expanded to 188 persons and counting and added that most of the people on the contact list are health workers.

"When we get more names (primary and secondary contacts), it will be added to the list. At least five relatives of the boy have been included in the list", she added.

High-risk primary contacts will be monitored in the newly opened isolation ward at Kozhikode Medical College, the highest government hospital in the district which treated patients during the outbreak of NIPAH in 2018, the officials said.

The teen was admitted to a private hospital in Kozhikode on September 1 with encephalitis and myocarditis. Three sets of samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune for confirmation. The test results that arrived on Saturday late at night showed the kid was positive for the Nipah virus. He passed away at 4:45 am Sunday.

His body was cremated on Sunday morning following WHO protocols.

For health workers, contact tracing has been a challenge as the boy has been admitted to three other hospitals before he was taken to the Medical College.

The health department has set a team to sort the route map of the boy and his family so that they could find their primary and secondary contacts and move them to quarantine for observation.

Meanwhile, all the roads within a radius of 3 km around the house of the deceased in Chathamangalam panchayath were closed down and declared as a containment zone. Police officers have been deployed to inspect the area. A high alert has been issued in Kozhikode, Malappuram and Kannur districts.