Indian health authorities are tackling a Nipah virus outbreak after five cases of the incurable disease were detected.
The infections from the bat-borne pathogen were reported within the eastern state of West Bengal near the state capital Kolkata, India’s third-most populous city.
Three recent infections were reported this week, authorities said.
They include a physician, a nurse, and a health staff member, according th Press Trust of India news agency.
Two nurses, a female and male, had tested positive earlier. Each were working on the private Narayana Multispeciality Hospital in Barasat, some 15 miles north of Kolkata.
Narayan Swaroop Nigam, the principal secretary of the department of health and family, said considered one of the 2 nurses is in critical condition after each developed high fevers and respiratory issues between Recent 12 months’s Eve and January 2, The Telegraph reports.
The nurse, who’s in a coma, is assumed to have caught the infection while treating a patient with severe respiratory issues. The patient died before tests were carried out.
Now the authorities have tested 180 people and quarantined 20 high-risk contacts.
What’s the Nipah virus?
Nipah virus spreads between animals and folks, comparable to from infected bats or pigs, and it could actually even be transmitted between people.
Fruit bats, that are common in India across cities and countryside, are the natural hosts of the virus.
In humans, the virus can show as an asymptomatic infection and acute respiratory issues. Symptoms include fever, headaches, muscle pain, vomiting and sore throat, and severe cases of brain inflammation can result in a coma inside 24 to 48 hours.
It has a fatality rate of between 40% to 75%, and there isn’t any treatment or vaccine against Nipah.
What does ‘priority pathogen’ mean?
The virus has been classified as a priority pathogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) since it has the potential to trigger an epidemic.
The organisation has called for urgent research and development into the pathogen, including animal and human vaccine work.
Should we be anxious about it?
Zoonotic diseases – meaning animal-to-human-transferring – have emerged has a source of concern for experts, especially after the Covid-19 and SARS pandemics.
Zoonotic diseases can spread more easily as a result of human interference with wildlife and environmental changes.
India has seen cases of the virus almost yearly in greater than twenty years.
Nipah has been linked to dozens of deaths within the southern state of Kerala because the virus was first spotted there in 2018.
Nipah was first detected in Singapore and Malaysia amongst pig farmers in 1999, and there have been subsequent outbreaks in parts of India and Bangladesh since.
While the virus is common in some species of bats, humans being infected with it’s rare, with probably source from bats brought on by eating an infected animal, Rajeev Jayadevan, the ex-president of Indian Medical Association, Cochin, said.
The danger of a Nipah virus infection may be reduced by avoiding exposure to pigs and bats and never drinking raw date palm sap, which might have been in touch with the animal.
Nipah doesn’t occur within the UK, and no cases linked to travel have been reported.
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