On Sunday, Kerala’s Health Minister, Veena George said, Two more people have been identified with symptoms of Nipah virus infection. The two are among the 20 high-risk contacts of the deceased 12-year-old child.
After addressing a meeting with the top officials to take cognizance of the situation, she told the reporters, “We have identified 188 contacts till now. The surveillance team have marked 20 of them as high-risk contacts. Two of these high-risk contacts have symptoms. Both are health workers. One works with a private hospital, while the other is a staff member of Kozhikode Medical College hospital.”
She then iterated the systematic arrangements that the government will initiate to ensure negligible discrepancy and proper care for the infected. She averred that “All the 20 high-risk contacts will be shifted to the Kozhikode Medical College by evening, while other contacts of the child have been asked to remain in isolation. The pay ward at the Medical College Hospital has been completely converted into a dedicated Nipah ward.”
Earlier in the morning, the boy infected with the Nipah virus succumbed at a hospital in Kerala. The samples from his body have been collected by medical professionals and are sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, to test the root cause, for which the reports stated the presence of the deadly virus.