Kerala Health Minister Veena George | Photo: Mathrubhumi News
Kozhikode: Kerala Health Minister Veena George said that the Nipah situation is currently under control in the state. She said that there are 352 people on the high-risk contact list. Health workers have intensified prevention activities in places where Nipah virus has been confirmed.
"No new cases have been reported at present. A nine-year-old boy under treatment is out of the ventilator. Currently, he is on oxygen support”, she said.
The minister informed that the improvement in the child's health condition is promising. Currently, 1233 people are on the contact list. 23 people have been admitted to the medical college. There are 4 people in the Institute of Maternal and Child Health (IMCH). The samples of 36 bats were collected and sent for testing. House visits have been completed in 34,167 houses as part of Nipah precaution to take stock of the situation, Veena said.
Meanwhile, discussions around the health department’s lapse in creating a complete contact list of the Nipah-infected patients is in focus. After it was established that Mangladu native Harris died of Nipah on September 11, the next day itself, the places that he visited, including Vadakara government district hospital, were released as a public notice.
Harris visited the district hospital on September 10 and was there from 11:00 AM- 3:00 PM. The health notice advising people who were present in the hospital during this time to contact the health department and go into home quarantine was only released this Sunday, five days after Harris death.
While at the hospital, Harris was in the Emergency department and the observation room. While many people were there at the same time, the hospital does not have the contact details of those patients. So the health department had to depend on CCTV visuals to identify the patients which proved to be quite difficult.
The error committed by the department in wrongly identifying the mosque Harris visited also caused undue concern. When complaints were raised, a revised notice with the Edodi Juma Masjid as the place of visit was updated last night.
This shows how such notices are issued without proper probe. This becomes problematic as it leads to unnecessary panic among the general public. (Inputs from ANI)
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