Health officials say quick action by the Baby Memorial doctors and virologist G. Arunkumar, head of the Manipal centre, helped early diagnosis of the illness as one caused by the nipah virus, a lethal infection never documented in south India before. We started tracing the contacts of the patients," Kerala health bureaucrat Rajiv Sadanandan said. "The rapid deterioration and the cluster from a family were warning signs of nipah." Arunkumar and his colleagues tested the samples for multiple microbes - viruses, bacteria and parasites - but found the signatures of the nipah virus. "Someone in Kerala thought about nipah - that is critical for early diagnosis," said Lalit Kant, a specialist in infectious disease control in New Delhi.

Source: The Telegraph May 24, 2018 21:22 UTC