Two more people have been identified with symptoms of Nipah virus infection, Kerala health minister Veen George said here on Sunday. The two are among the 20 high risk contacts of the deceased 12-year-old child, she said."We have identified 188 contacts till now. The surveillance team have marked 20 of them as high risk contacts. Two of these high risk contacts have symptoms. Both are health workers. One works with a private hospital, while the other is a staff member of Kozhikode Medical College hospital," she told reporters after chairing a high-level meeting to take stock of the situation.
She said all the 20 high risk contacts will be shifted to the Kozhikode Medical College by evening, while other contacts of the child have been asked to remain in isolation. The pay ward at the Medical College Hospital has been completely converted into a dedicated Nipah ward, she said. The boy died at a hospital here early this morning. The samples of the boy, which were sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, confirmed the presence of the virus. In the wake of the virus resurfacing in Kerala, the Centre has advised some immediate public health measures which include active case search in the family, village and areas with similar topography especially in Malappuram. The measures also include active contact tracing for any contacts in the past 12 days, strict quarantine of the contacts and isolation of any suspects and collection and transportation of samples for lab testing, the ministry said. The last time the Nipah virus was reported in Kerala was in 2019 in Kochi. In 2018, an outbreak in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts had claimed 17 lives.