Indian State of Kerala Acting to Contain Renewed Nipah Virus Outbreak

Written by Kyle Hosey | September 17, 2023

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Indian health officials in the state of Kerala are expressing optimism amid ongoing efforts to
trace and contain a new outbreak of a virus known as Nipah in the past week. Kerala’s chief minister
called for calm but also caution as the state instituted some transit and lockdown measures after two people died of the disease this week. Contact tracing measures are also reportedly extensive.

Nipah, which was first reported among humans in 1999 and in Kerala in 2018, is believed to
originate in fruit bats, which are increasingly in contact with humans in rapidly expanding and
industrializing regions like Kerala. While the disease has a much higher fatality rate than COVID-19
(perhaps 40% across limited cases), it is also far less contagious; person-to-person transmission is
possible, but at much lower rates. Contact tracing and containment tend to be easier as a result; other Nipah outbreaks across Southeast Asia in the past two decades have fizzled quickly, which is likely (and hopefully) to be the case in Kerala this year.