The Kozhikode Cluster That Alarmed Epidemiologists
In May 2018, seventeen people died in Kozhikode district within weeks of each other. The deaths came fast and with alarming symptoms: sudden fever, disorientation, and in several cases, acute encephalitis. The Kerala health department, working with the National Institute of Virology in Pune, confirmed Nipah virus, a pathogen that had previously caused outbreaks in Malaysia in 1999 and Bangladesh repeatedly through the 2000s, but had never been confirmed in India at this scale.
