A junior doctor and a nurse have been admitted to Kolkata’s Infectious Diseases and Beliaghata General Hospital after developing early symptoms of the Nipah virus infection, the Hindustan Times quoted a state health department official as saying on Wednesday.
The Nipah virus is a “zoonotic illness” transferred from animals such as pigs and fruit bats to humans. The virus can also be caught through human-to-human transmission.
It causes fever and cold-like symptoms in patients. The infection can also cause encephalitis, which is the inflammation of the brain, and myocarditis, or the inflammation of the heart, in some cases.
The two persons had been treating a healthcare worker, who had later tested positive for the virus at the Burdwan Medical College and Hospital in Purba Bardhaman district.
The doctor and the nurse were shifted to the hospital in Kolkata on Tuesday and have been kept in isolation, an unidentified official told the newspaper. Their blood and nasopharyngeal swab samples have been sent for testing, another official was quoted as saying.
The new suspected cases came three days after two healthcare workers in the state tested positive for the infection. They remain in critical condition at a hospital in Barasat. While one of them is in coma, the other is on ventilator support, The Hindu reported.
Their infections were initially detected at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences Kalyani and reconfirmed by the National Institute of Virology in Pune.
While more than 120 persons, including hospital staff, family members and ambulance drivers, who were in contact with the two healthcare workers have also been told to isolate themselves, several others are being screened for the virus, The Hindu reported.
Contact tracing is underway in North 24 Parganas, Bardhaman and Nadia districts.
The source of the outbreak has not yet been identified.
While the last outbreaks of the Nipah virus were in West Bengal in 2001 and 2007, the last reported cases of the disease in the country was in Kerala in August.
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