Relatives wearing masks attend the funeral a victim, who lost his battle against the brain-damaging Nipah virus, at a burial ground in Kozhikode, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, India, May 24, 2018. Reuters/Stringer
MUMBAI: Officials in a third Indian state were checking on Friday if two people had been infected with the brain-damaging Nipah virus that has killed 12 in southern Kerala, although the government described the outbreak as minor.
Such outbreaks are a concern in a country where hundreds die from infectious diseases each year for lack of vigorous disease tracking systems.
There is no vaccine for the virus, carried by fruit bats, and the only treatment is supportive care.
The virus has not spread beyond Kerala, the government said after investigation by health officials linked the initial deaths to a well colonised by bats whose water the victims had been using.
"The Nipah virus disease is not a major outbreak and is only a local occurrence," the government said in a statement, adding that a team of experts continued to monitor the situation.
Blood samples from two men who showed the flu-like symptoms of the virus were sent for testing, said a health official in Telangana, a state neighbouring Kerala.
"We just sent them as a precaution," said K Shankar, medical superintendent of the Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases in Hyderabad.
Two suspect cases in Karnataka, another state bordering Kerala, proved negative, said a medical official there.
All the confirmed infections have involved people who caught the virus from the first victim while he was being treated, said microbiologist G. Arun Kumar.
"Hospital-acquired infections are a major path of human to human transmission," added Kumar, who heads the Manipal Centre for Virus Research that is testing virus samples.
The virus, spread through contact with bodily fluids, has a mortality rate of about 70 percent.
A global coalition to fight epidemics this week struck a $25-million deal with two U.S. biotech groups to speed work on a vaccine.
A clutch of dead bats discovered on the roof of a school in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh triggered a brief scare, but there are no suspected human infections, said health official Sanjay Sharma.
The finding of dead bats was not an unusual event, said one state forest official.
"This is not unusual, but the department has sent bat samples for tests as a precautionary measure," said the official, Ramesh Kang.
Associated Press adds:
The outbreak of ..deadly virus has not spread beyond two areas in south India, officials said, but they have issued a series of warnings to people living in the stricken towns.
A total of 12 people have died of Nipah virus since the outbreak began a few weeks ago in the state of Kerala, an unidentified senior Health Ministry official told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Another 40 people with Nipah symptoms, which can include high fever, vomiting and convulsions, are being treated in area hospitals.
There is no vaccine for Nipah, and no treatment beyond supportive care to make patients comfortable. The virus kills up to 75 percent of those infected.
While officials believe this outbreak began with someone infected somehow by a fruit bat, the ministry official said every subsequent infection came from human-to-human contact, sometimes passing to relatives or medical workers caring for the sick.
About 100 families where someone has had contact with infected people are being carefully monitored.
On Thursday, medical workers in white plastic suits and breathing masks buried the latest victim in the town of Kozhikode, placing his plastic-wrapped corpse in the red earth.
Many of the handful of mourners who turned out for the burial were also wearing breathing masks.
Meanwhile, officials have issued a set of warnings to two parts of Kerala, including telling the public to avoid consuming partially eaten fruit from date palms and raw liquor made from dates.
People have also been told to avoid abandoned wells.
Fruit bats eat dates from palm trees, and sometimes nest in wells.
The central government has dispatched teams from the National Centre for Disease Control to the area to monitor the outbreak.
