Officials in southern India are working to curb a possible deadly outbreak Get rid of the virus after a boy died due to the rare virus last week, according to the news.
The 12-year-old was admitted to a hospital in Kozhikode, a city in the Indian state of Kerala, with symptoms of fever and brain inflammation, according to NPR. He was diagnosed with a Nipah virus infection and died on September 5th.
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September 5, 2021: People in protective suits prepare to cremate the body of a 12-year-old boy who died of the Nipah virus in Kozhikode, Kerala, India.
(Photo by AP / Shijith. K)
After the death, officials were quick to identify and isolate people who had come into close contact with the boy. As of Sept. 6, officials had identified 188 contacts, 20 of whom were considered close contacts and were quarantined or monitored in a hospital, according to CBS News. On September 7, eight of the close contacts tested negative for the virus.
However, at least two health workers who had contact with the boy began to show symptoms of the viral infection and were hospitalized while waiting for test results to confirm an infection, CBS News reported. Officials also sealed an area within a 3.2-kilometer (2-mile) radius of the boy’s home to investigate the outbreak.
The Nipah virus is found naturally in fruit bats of the genus Pteropus, although it can jump on other animals, including humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The virus can cause swelling of the brain known as encephalitis and symptoms can include fever and headache, followed by drowsiness, disorientation and confusion. According to the CDC, people infected with the virus can fall into a coma within 48 hours after presenting with symptoms.
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September 7, 2021: Health workers collect blood samples from neighborhood goats for testing after a 12-year-old boy died of the Nipah virus in Kozhikode, Kerala, India.
(Photo by AP / Shijith. K)
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The virus is highly lethal, with a mortality rate of 75%, according to the World Health Organization. It is much higher than the mortality rate for COVID-19, which has been estimated to be around 2% overall, using data on cases and deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. But the Nipah virus is much less contagious than the coronavirus that causes COVID-19; for example, it is estimated that the delta variant of the coronavirus has a basic playback number, or R0 (pronounced R naught), around 7, meaning that each infected person spreads the virus to an average of seven more people, according to NPR. Instead, according to the Johns Hopkins Health Safety Center.
According to the CDC, the Nipah virus was first discovered in 1999, when it caused an outbreak in Malaysia and Singapore related to pig farms that killed more than 100 people. Since then, the virus has mainly caused outbreaks in Bangladesh and India.
Kerala previously experienced an outbreak of the Nipah virus in 2018, which killed more than a dozen people, according to NPR. The current outbreak is occurring as Kerala is also dealing with a high rate of COVID-19 cases; in recent weeks, the state has reported the highest number of new COVID-19 cases per day of all states in India, NPR reported.
Originally published in Live Science.