Chapter 6: Kerala Nipah Virus Outbreak 2018: The Need for Global Surveillance of Zoonotic Diseases

In May 2018, a fatal virus called Nipah (NiV) caused widespread panic among the public in the small state of Kerala in India, bringing this emerging and reemerging infectious disease under the spotlight. The virus considered a new age plague that had made erratic appearances across the globe with no clear causal patterns is said to be a zoonotic virus, transmitted from animals to humans, or through contaminated food or from infected humans. The virus is one of eight categories of diseases that the World Health Organization has identified as epidemic threats in need of prioritization.ⁱ Over the past 20 years, the virus has continued to spread over thousands of kilometers to Bangladesh and India. Recorded mortality rates in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and India are between 40 and 90 percent and has no vaccines or effective treatments.ⁱⁱ In India, the Nipah virus outbreak in a small town called Perambra, from the state of Kerala, claimed lives of 17 people in 2018. Immediately after the virus outbreak, the government of Kerala took a slew of measures to control virus spread with the help of the local and state machinery and cooperation of the public. It remains to be seen how the Government of Kerala controlled the virus outbreak within a short span of time.