11 more in Nipah contact list test -ve

Kozhikode/T'puram: Health minister Veena George said that the test results of the 11 individuals, who are on the contact list of the 42-year-old Nipah-positive woman from Valanchery, were negative. George, who had chaired an online review meeting on the Nipah situation on Sunday, said that with this a total of 42 persons have tested negative.

Meanwhile 18 more persons were added to the contact list of the Nipah-positive patient, on Sunday, bringing the total to 112. Among them, 54 are classified as high-risk contacts and 58 as low-risk contacts. The contact list includes 81 from Malappuram, 25 from Palakkad, three from Kozhikode and one each from Ernakulam, Idukki and Thiruvananthapuram.

Meanwhile, 10 persons in the contact list of the Nipah positive patient have been hospitalized, including one person in the ICU. The person, who was on the contact list and transferred from Nilambur district hospital to Manjeri medical college on Saturday, is the person undergoing treatment in the ICU.

The health minister said that the condition of the Nipah patient continued to be serious. She was admitted to the hospital in Perinthalmanna on May 1. On Friday, doctors administered monoclonal antibodies to the patient in the ICU and they had given another dose on Saturday.

The Nipah patient, who is undergoing treatment, is still in a critical condition. The minister said that 10 persons in the high-risk category are currently being provided prophylactic treatment.

As part of fever surveillance, trained health workers visited 2,087 homes on Sunday. Till date, a total of 3,868 homes were visited in the affected wards of the panchayat and 87% of house visits have been completed, she added.

For the joint Nipah outbreak investigation, being coordinated by various departments, instructions were given to specifically examine the animals that died in the patient's neighbourhood, she said.