The deadly virus: Laxity in countering Nipah can be disastrous

By declaring that the Nipah viral disease in Kerala is “not a major outbreak and is only a local occurrence”, the health ministry seems to underrate the potential perils of this scourge. Nipah is one of most lethal viruses with a mortality rate as high as more than 70 per cent. Till now, 16 out of the 18 people who had tested positive for the virus in Kerala have died. It has been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) among the eight highly hazardous diseases, along with Ebola and Zika, which could trigger global pandemics. Worse still, there is no vaccine, nor any cure, for this virus. The government’s bid to trivialise it has, expectedly, cut no ice with people. Many of them have fled from Kozhikode and Malappuram districts, the epicentre of the malady, abandoning their homes and livestock. Its economic fallout, too, has begun to emerge with the countries like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates banning, even if temporarily, the import of fruit and vegetables from Kerala and advising their citizens to avoid visiting this region. 

According to the WHO, Nipah is a zoonotic virus transmittable to humans from animals like bats and pigs. It causes brain-damaging sickness, which begins with flu-like respiratory symptoms and advances towards fatal encephalitis. The name comes from Kampung Sungai Nipah, a district in Malaysia, where it was discovered in 1998. Since then, its outbreaks have been reported in countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Madagascar, Ghana, the Philippines, Bangladesh and India. Bangladesh has, in fact, witnessed several episodes of this ailment since 2001. In India, it was recorded in Siliguri, West Bengal, in 2001 when it killed 45 people. 

No doubt, the state and Central health authorities have done well to contain the infection in its hotspot in Kerala till now, but the chances of its escaping to other tracts, even distant ones, are not ruled out. Worryingly, the source of this infection in Kerala is still not confirmed, making it hard to find an enduring solution. The general belief is that bats, besides pigs, are the main carriers of this infection. However, the bats collected from the house of the family in Kozhikode which suffered the maximum casualties were found free of the Nipah virus. More tests on bats are underway to ascertain the real source. The WHO maintains that the infection normally spreads through the consumption of fruit and fruit products contaminated with the urine or saliva of virus-carrying fruit-eating bats. If this is true, it makes the task of restraining this virus all the more arduous. Contaminated fruit might have already reached other areas and consumed there. Their further spread can, however, be stemmed by destroying them after paying suitable compensation to the growers. But this infection can also be disseminated through infected, but not yet sick, humans during the long incubation period of the virus, spanning four to 14 days and, at times, even up to 40 days. Restricting the movement of such human carriers of virus may not be easy.

Nonetheless, the monetary cost of any strategy to control this virus is bound to be high. Besides hitting lucrative fruit exports, it would adversely affect the vibrant tourism industry in Kerala. But this cost has to be borne to stop the killer virus from dispersing to other areas. Any laxity on this count, on the presumption of its being a one-off local event, would prove calamitous.