Kerala Swung Into Action Against Nipah Virus Right From Start: Pinarayi Vijayan

The Chief Minister said that ICMR has assured to get monoclonal antibody from Australia for the state.

The moment the first case of Nipah was identified in the state, amidst the fight against COVID-19, the government swung into action and took all necessary steps, including forming committees, setting up a testing lab at Kozhikode Medical College and carrying out intensive tracing of contacts, to fight against the deadly virus, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Tuesday. Speaking to the media in the evening, he said the government immediately formed 16 committees to oversee the monitoring, sample testing, result management, contact tracing, operation of a travel system for the sick, infrastructure management and data analysis, for effectively preventing spread of Nipah. He said that presently there were 257 people on the contact list and of these, 141 were health workers and none of them have any serious symptoms. He also said that all the samples tested till then were negative for Nipah and more were being tested at the lab in Kozhikode Medical College as well as at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune and their outcome was awaited.