Two infected people have died since Aug. 30 in Kerala’s fourth virus outbreak since 2018, forcing authorities to declare containment zones in at least eight Kozhikode villages. “We are focusing on tracing contacts of infected persons early and isolating anyone with symptoms,” state Health Minister Veena George told reporters. The Nipah virus was first identified in 1999 during an illness outbreak among pig farmers and others in close contact with the animals in Malaysia and Singapore. During the 2018 Nipah outbreak, fruit bats from the same area tested positive for the virus. In Kerala’s first Nipah outbreak, 21 of the 23 people infected died.
