Medicines for Nipah to be brought in says Kerala Health Minister

The Nipah virus has caused considerable panic and death in Kerala, and have the people cautious of what they are consuming.

But is medicine available to fight against this epidemic?

Health minister K K Shylaja said that medicines from Malaysia would be brought to treat the Nipah virus outbreak. The government is trying to bring the Riba medicine that was used in Malaysia to Kerala.

This medicine is the only one which could control the Nipah virus to some extent. The Nipa virus is under control, the minister said at a press meet in Kozhikode today. An all-party meeting will be held on May 25.

READ ALSO: Nipah Virus: After Kerala, Telangana Health Ministry issued high alert warning

In the meantime, two of the victims were admitted to the Kozhikode medical college hospital. A 30-year-old resident of Malappuram was admitted to Manjeri Medical College and a one-and-a-half-year-old in Wayanad was admitted to Kozhikode private hospital last night.

With this, the number of people who have contracted the disease reached 17.

There were no further reports of the disease in Wayanad and there is no need to panic said the Collector.

According to the WHO website, NiV was first identified during an outbreak of the disease in Kampung Sungai Nipah, Malaysia, in 1998, when pigs were the intermediate hosts. The virus gets its name from the place where it was first identified.

In Bangladesh in 2004, humans became infected with NiV as a result of consuming date palm sap that had been contaminated by infected fruit bats.

NiV infection in humans has a range of clinical presentations, from asymptomatic infection to the acute respiratory syndrome and fatal encephalitis.

It is not clinically proven that the drug ribavirin is effective to cure Nipah virus infection. But it is the only medicine which could at least prevent the infection.