Thiruvananthapuram: Ribavirin is the only available medicine that can control symptoms, but only to a certain extent, if started during early stages. Travellers should avoid visits to endemic areas until the disease is curtailed and in case of recent transit they should look out for symptoms like fever, headache and cough and will need to seek medical care immediately, says Dr Mahesh Kumar, internal medicine consultant at Narayana Health City.
While the R&D is going on to develop treatment and a preventive vaccine for Nipah virus, however, one of the key triggers to recent increase in disease incidence is human encroachment into breeding areas.
According to WHO, there is strong evidence that the emergence of bat-related viral infection communicable to humans and animals has been attributed to the loss of natural habitats of bats. As the flying fox habitat is destroyed by human activity, the bats get stressed and hungry, their immune system gets weaker, their virus load goes up and a lot of virus spills out in their urine and saliva.
Nipah virus spreads by consuming infected fruits like mango and fresh date palm sap contaminated by bats and also by coming in direct contact with an infected patient and sometimes infected pigs.
The incubation period of the virus is 3 to 14 days and affected patients may have high grade fever, headache and cough which may rapidly progress to breathing difficulty, respiratory failure, seizures, delirium and coma.
