High-level teams from the Centre and ICMR-NIV with mobile units equipped with BSL-3 laboratories have reached Kozhikode and will be doing on-ground testing, said Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar on September 14 after she reviewed steps taken for containment of Nipah virus outbreak in Kozhikode, Kerala.
The meeting was organized by the Indian Council of Medical Research – National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV), in Pune.
The Minister added that the affected gram panchayats in the Kozhikode area have been declared as quarantine zones.
A multi-disciplinary team led has also been deputed by the Union Health Ministry to support the state in public health measures to deal with this outbreak.
“The Health Ministry and ICMR-NIV is monitoring the issue on a daily basis and all possible arrangements are being made to deal with the viral outbreak,” she said.
The brain-damaging virus has killed two people and infected three others in Kozhikode district so far. On Wednesday, a 24-year-old health worker became Kerala's fifth confirmed Nipah case since its recent outbreak.
"The ICMR's mBSL-3, which is the first biosafety level-3 containment mobile laboratory of South Asia, has been stationed at Kozhikode. It will help in early testing and detection of the infection at the district itself," an official source said.
So far, the samples were being sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune.
The mobile laboratory was set up in February last year to investigate newly emerging and reemerging viral infections that are highly infectious and of lethal potential to human beings.
Union Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar visited the ICMR's National Institute of Virology in Pune and held a review meeting in view of the Nipah virus cases reported in Kozhikode.
A five-member central team comprising experts from the National Centre for Disease Control, RML Hospital and NIMHANS has been stationed in Kerala to take stock of the situation and assist the state government in the management of the Nipah virus infection.
The Kerala government on September 14 said there was no need to be apprehensive about the Nipah outbreak in Kozhikode district but caution needs to be exercised by people as they go about their daily activities.
The Kerala government said the monoclonal antibody required for treatment of those infected by the Nipah virus has arrived in the state. State Health Minister Veena George said a meeting was held between the Principal Secretary of the Health Department and the Union Health Ministry earlier in the day and now the monoclonal antibody has arrived.
(with inputs from PTI)
