The government in Kerala issued a high alert on Monday after the 23-year-old patient admitted in an isolation ward in Ernakulam district tested positive for the deadly brain-damaging Nipah virus.

State health minister KK Shailaja admitted that the initial tests showed the man was positive to Nipah. Six people, who were in contact with the patient, have also been quarantined as the government opened an emergency control room in Ernakulam.

Centre will rush an experts team to Kerala as the state government assured people that there was nothing to worry about and advised people to take precautions.

The man was admitted to a private hospital after he complained of persistent fever and headache for ten days. He contracted the fever when he went to Thrissur for training. An alert has been sounded in Thrissur as well.

The virus that causes high fever, headache and coma in extreme cases is spread by fruit bats. Body fluids can cause human-to-human transmission of Nipah, which has a mortality rate of 70% and has no vaccine.

A Nipah outbreak in May last year had claimed 17 lives, including that of a nurse who treated one of the patients.

First Published: Jun 03, 2019 11:18 IST