Thiruvananthapuram: A 42 year old woman is tested positive for Nipah in Malappuram district of Kerala.
State health minister Veena George told reporters that emergency surveillance measures were being taken to ensure that more persons were not infected.
The infected woman is now under treatment at a hospital in Perinthalmanna town.
Even since the major Nipah breakout in Kerala in 2018, Nipah is being reported in the state in almost all years mostly in north Kerala districts. The exact source of the infections could not be conclusively identified.
Last year a 14 year old boy hailing from Malappuram and a 24 year old youth studying in Bengaluru, who also hailed from Malappuram, died due to the infection.
In the 2018 outbreak twenty people died in Kozhikode. Though one person was infected in 2019, he recovered. In 2021 one person died due to Nipah. In 2023 out of the six infected two died.
Nipah virus, which is one of the ten priority pathogens identified by the World Health Organisation, is a highly pathogenic paramyxovirus.