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The Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala, India, claimed 21 lives out of 23 cases, with a case fatality rate of 88.9% (deaths/laboratory-confirmed cases, 16/18).
This outbreak highlights the ongoing need for laboratory training, increased diagnostic capacity for Nipah virus and pathogens of high consequence, the need for improved hospital infection control and the importance of rapid detection and response.
The May 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala, India, linked to Pteropus Bats
This report summarises the complete outbreak timeline and findings, including the association of infection and Pteropus bats, and makes the link to global health security in India.
INTRODUCTION
On 17 May 2018, 12 days after his brother died of a febrile illness, a male patient in his mid-20s visited a hospital in Kozhikode, Kerala, with a fever. One day later, he was dead—but not before his doctors at Baby Memorial Hospital and Kerala’s additional director of public health noticed the similarity of the patient’s symptoms, which were consistent with encephalitis, to those of his brother who had died days before. NiV was identified as the cause of death from the patient’s samples sent to the Manipal Centre for Virus Research (MCVR) (a Grade I Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory of the Indian Council of Medical Research; ICMR) at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (deemed University) in Manipal, Karnataka, on May 18. Additional investigation by scientists at the ICMR’s National Institute of Virology (NIV, Biosafety Level-4) in Pune, Maharashtra, quickly reconfirmed Nipah as the cause of this outbreak only 2 days after MCVR’s initial confirmation. Nipah claimed 21 lives out of 23 cases in the Kozhikode and Mallapuram districts of Kerala, with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 88.9% (deaths/laboratory-confirmed cases, 16/18).
NiV is a member of the family Paramyxoviridae, genus Henipavirus and was initially isolated and identified during a 1999 outbreak of encephalitis among pig farmers and people with close …