Kerala's health machinery on high alert after 12-year-old boy dies to Nipah virus

The central government has rushed a team from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to provide support to the state, where a 12 year-old boy died due to Nipah on Sunday and two others displayed symptoms of the virus infection.

As Kerala reeled under a daily increase of nearly 30,000 cases of COVID-19, the deadly Nipah virus has come as another thorn in its side, prompting the state to further heighten the alertness of its health machinery to prevent an outbreak of a different infection. The southern state, which already saw a localised outbreak of 63 cases of Zika virus in July that was mostly confined to Thiruvananthapuram, however, need not be concerned about the spread of Nipah infection as preventive measures like use of masks and PPE kits -- are already in place due to COVID-19 and intensive contact tracing was going on, state health minister Veena George said on Sunday.