Caught Unawares

Recent outbreak of Nipah virus is another reminder of India's ill-preparedness to deal with emerging zoonotic diseases

- N P Chekkutty

FOR DECADES, Kerala basked in the glory of its excellent performance in the human development indices like public health and education, earning praise even from global agencies. But the sudden outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus in a village in the foothills of the Western Ghats in the northern part of the state has exposed the unseemly underbelly of the famed Kerala model of healthcare. The sudden occurrence of the deadly virus has come as a warning sign for the whole country, one of the world’s hotspots in zoonotic diseases.

The Nipah virus has killed 17 people in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts. The virus has made more than 200 people sick and another 1,407 are being monitored to ensure they do not carry the virus as they were in contact with the affected people.

The first patient, 26-year-old Muhammad Sabith, resident of a small village Sooppikkada in Changaroth pan-chayat near Perambra, Kozhikode, died on May 5 without anyone being wiser to the cause. He had fallen sick early May and was being treated at the taluk hospital in Perambra. But when doctors there failed to treat the high fever and related complications, he was shifted to the Calicut Medical College. The symptoms of Nipah are mostly generic and include encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), fever, headache and disorientation. It was only when his brother, Salih too fell sick two weeks later that doctors suspected Nipah virus and sent blood and serum samples to the Manipal Centre for Virus Research. A total of four people in the family succumbed to Nipah virus and all of those who contracted the disease got it through person-to-person contact in the hospitals where they were being treated. The state machinery did not wake up to the epidemic and put in requisite safeguards to contain the disease.