MudurPicture credit: ShutterstockNew Delhi: If one comes across a patient infected with the deadly nipah virus, keeping a metre's distance is important, virologists say. The nipah virus spreads not through the air but through droplets secreted by the patients. The Union health ministry said on Thursday that 14 patients had been "confirmed" with nipah infection in Kerala and that 12 of them had died. Scientists had isolated the nipah virus in 1999 after an outbreak in pigs and humans in Malaysia and Singapore. Fruit bats are the natural reservoirs of the nipah virus.

Source: The Telegraph May 24, 2018 20:26 UTC