Nipah virus returns to Kerala!

The deadly Nipah Virus has resurfaced in Kerala, after a 23-year-old Kerala student, admitted in a private hospital in Ernakulam, was tested positive of the virus.

Kerala's health minister K K Shylaja confirmed that the youth was infected with Nipah virus, after Pune-based National Institute of Virology, which tested the man's blood samples and confirmed the presence of the virus.

The youth studied in a college in Thodupuzha in Idukki and had stayed in Thrissur recently. He was hospitalized with a high fever in Kochi 10 days ago.

While confirming the news, the state health minister asked the public not panic, as the state has done all the necessary arrangements to deal with a possible outbreak including setting up of isolation wards with all facilities including ventilators at medical colleges in three districts where the patient's movements have been traced — Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Thrissur.