Past outbreaks, scrutiny helped in case detection

A combination of familiarity with symptoms, adherence to protocols laid down during previous outbreaks and effective contact tracing measures helped officials in Kerala detect cases of Nipah virus in time, experts said on Thursday, a day after a 24-yearold health worker tested positive taking the total cases to five

- Vishnu Varma

It began on August 30, when a 47-year-old man died at a private hospital in Kozhikode with symptoms including fever that gradually turned into pneumonia. On September 10, four of his relatives - his son (9), daughter, brotherin-law, and the brother-in-law's son, were rushed to the hospital in Kozhikode with fever. "The man's son soon suffered shortness of breath and seizures. Normal fever tests and other respiratory tests returned negative. That's when we suspected that this was something different," Dr Anoop Kumar AS, director of critical care medicine at the hospital, said. "Doctors treating the nine-year-old boy found that his father had also experienced symptoms like disorientation before his death," Dr Ku