Nipah virus mortality rate 40%-70%, much higher than Covid: ICMR

India will procure from Australia 20 more doses of monoclonal antibody

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on September 15 that the mortality rate is high in Nipah virus cases compared to Covid-19 cases.

“If Covid had a mortality of 2-3 percent, here the mortality is 40-70 percent. So, the mortality is extremely high,” ICMR's Director General Rajiv Bahl said at a press conference.

With another case of Nipah virus being detected in Kerala, the state now has six active cases. The state government will now test everyone who is on the high-risk contact list of the infected persons.

In a major relief, the 11 samples sent for testing returned negative results for the virus. A five-member central team comprising experts from the National Centre for Disease Control, RML Hospital and NIMHANS has been stationed in Kerala to help the state government manage the Nipah infection.

The ICMR's mBSL-3, the first Biosafety Level-3 containment mobile laboratory in south Asia, will help early testing at the district level, according to a report by Hindustan Times. “Efforts are on to contain the Nipah outbreak. All the infected came in contact with one index patient. India will procure from Australia 20 more doses of monoclonal antibody for the treatment of Nipah virus infection,” said Bahl.

On why cases keep surfacing in Kerala, Bahl said, "We do not know. In 2018, we found the outbreak in Kerala was related to bats. We are not sure how the infection passed from Bats to humans. The link couldn't be established. Again we are trying to find out this time. It always happens in the rainy season." He said monoclonal antibodies have been given to 14 patients infected with Nipah virus outside India and all of them have survived.

According to Bahl, some of the precautionary measures are exactly the same as those taken against Covid- repeated hand washing, mask. "In this case, most important is the contact with the human patient because most of the time the first patient gets it from somewhere and the others are contacts of that patient...The third most important thing is staying away or not getting exposed to body fluids, blood. So safety - biosafety, hospital safety, isolation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Karnataka has advised the general public to avoid unnecessary travel to affected areas of Kerala.