India’s federal authorities have dispatched a team of medical specialists to southern Kerala state to investigate the outbreak of the mysterious and little-known Nipah virus, which has claimed at least 12 lives over the past fortnight. Another 25 people have been hospitalised in northern Kerala’s coastal Kozhikode (formerly Calicut) district with symptoms of the Nipah virus, also known as NiV infection. Many people were infected with the virus in Bangladesh in 2004 after consuming date palm sap infected by fruit bats. Meanwhile, overworked doctors at the government-run Kozhikode Medical College were hard-pressed to convince panicked patients that their fevers and minor ailments were not the Nipah virus. All three had earlier succumbed to the Nipah virus.

Source: The Irish Times May 22, 2018 12:33 UTC