Nipah Virus: Kerala schools, colleges shut in containment zones after 2 cases, 2 deaths

NEW DELHI: Kerala general education minister V Sivankutty has directed all schools in the containment zones to be closed owing to the Nipah virus alert issued on Tuesday. The state received confirmation on Nipah virus from the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.

“Exams for the Literacy Mission are ongoing. These exams will be held at a later date for students and centres in the containment zone. For the rest of the centres exams will go on as usual,” the education minister said.

The Kozhikode administration has declared seven village panchayats -Atanchery, Maruthonkara, Tiruvallur, Kuttiyadi, Kayakkodi, Villyapalli, and Kavilumpara - as containment zones. Lockdown has been imposed in these containment zones. Only essential services will be allowed to function from 7 am to 5 pm.

All government and private educational institutions, and anganwadis have been asked to remain closed in these areas.

“Nipah virus infection has been confirmed in Kozhikode district. Two people died due to infections. Of the four people whose saliva was sent for testing, two were Nipah positive and two were Nipah negative," Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a Facebook post.

NIV Pune tested five samples out of which three tested positive for the virus, state health minister Veena George. Of which one of the infected is a nine-year-old boy. Two deaths have been reported so far.

The health minister has started a massive contact tracing exercise. “The health department has also found out that the deceased persons were together in a private hospital for almost one hour at a particular point of time and as of now, there are no other points of contact for them other than that,” the PTI reported.