Forty-seven of the 330 people who have had direct/ indirect contact with the Nipah patient and were under home quarantine have been removed from the surveillance list.
For the rest, the incubation period for any viral fever will be ending in the coming days and they will be released from home quarantine depending on their health status.
The government will take a decision on declaring the district free of Nipah in the coming days after all the people who had come in contact with the Nipah-positive person are free of the threat, said District Collector Mohammed Y. Safirulla at a briefing to the media on Thursday.
Monitoring to continue
On the progress of Nipah-prevention activities, Mr. Safirulla said it was the last meeting of the inter-departmental core committee that was reviewing the activities in the past eleven days since the Nipah scare hit the district. However, the Health Department under the District Medical Officer and the District Surveillance Officer would continue to the review the situation for Nipah or other communicable disease such as H1N1, said Mr. Safirulla. “The big threat of Nipah is not felt now,” he said.
Medical experts who have reached here from various States and agencies had analysed 1,798 deaths in the month of May. No connection to Nipah virus was obtained in these analysis, Mr. Safirulla said.
Experts from research organisations, which include virologists, epidemiologists, and researchers in zoonotic diseases and other animal studies, are collecting bat and pig samples from localities to trace the source of the Nipah infection.