With Kerala confirming one case of Nipah infection, the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Government of Tamil Nadu, has asked doctors to stay alert and keep Nipah in mind while dealing with cases of high-grade fever and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES)-like symptoms.
The directorate has issued guidelines to doctors and public health field staff across the State. “We have asked doctors to be alert. AES is covered in our daily surveillance, and we have reminded doctors to keep Nipah virus in mind while dealing with high-grade fever cases. We have sent them presentations on prevention and control of Nipah virus infection and guidelines through WhatsApp and email,” said K. Kolandaswamy, director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
Nipah virus presents itself in humans in the form of AES, with symptoms of headache, high fever, drowsiness that progresses to convulsions and/or coma and death and/or influenza-like illness with symptoms of pneumonia with fever, cough, sore throat, headache and tiredness.
Health officials said symptomatic and supportive care was the mainstay of treatment.
The Health Department is monitoring the daily incidence of infectious disease cases reported as in-patients in government and private hospitals in the State.
All Deputy Directors of Health Services were instructed to strengthen surveillance activities and to look out for cluster of Acute Encephalitis cases.
The Director of Medical Education and the Director of Medical and Rural Health Services were requested to establish temporary isolation wards and ensure the availability of adequate personal protective equipment, drugs and life-saving equipment such as ventilators. All hospitals were requested to ensure standard infection control practices, including surface cleaning, disinfection and hand hygiene. A 24-hour control room is functioning at DPH to monitor the situation. Samples suspected to be Nipah virus can be sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, through the King Institute of Preventive Medicine, Guindy.
Border surveillance
Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar said a team headed by the Additional Director of Public Health would be visiting border districts such as Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari, Theni, Coimbatore, Dindigul and Tirupur.
“As of now, there is no impact of the Nipah virus in Tamil Nadu. All precautionary measures have been taken. We already have isolation wards,” he told reporters on Wednesday. He added that the department was monitoring if there were any cluster of fever cases, and were also getting fever surveillance reports from 2,800 government and private hospitals.
