Indian authorities on Tuesday said they had ensured the “timely containment” of the deadly Nipah virus after confirming two cases in the eastern state of West Bengal since December, downplaying earlier reports that suggested a larger outbreak.
In a statement issued late Tuesday, India’s health ministry said enhanced surveillance and rapid public health interventions had helped prevent further spread of the virus, which has no vaccine and carries a high fatality rate.
“Enhanced surveillance, laboratory testing, and field investigations were undertaken … which ensured timely containment of the cases,” the ministry said, without disclosing further details about the two infected patients.
The ministry added that the situation remained under constant monitoring, with all necessary public health measures in place. A total of 196 contacts linked to the confirmed cases were traced and tested, all of whom were found to be negative for the virus, it said.
Earlier media reports had suggested that as many as five cases of Nipah had been detected in West Bengal, raising concerns about a possible wider outbreak. Health officials, however, did not confirm those reports and said the response had been swift and effective.
Nipah is a zoonotic virus that spreads from animals to humans and can also be transmitted through contaminated food or direct human-to-human contact. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus has a fatality rate ranging from 40 to 75 percent, depending on the outbreak and the availability of supportive care.
Symptoms of Nipah infection typically begin with fever, headache, vomiting and respiratory problems. In severe cases, the disease can progress rapidly to encephalitis, or brain inflammation, leading to seizures, coma and death.
The virus was first identified in 1998 during an outbreak among pig farmers in Malaysia. In India, the first recorded Nipah outbreak occurred in West Bengal in 2001. Since then, the southern state of Kerala has reported several outbreaks, including one in 2018 that killed at least 17 people and another in 2023 that claimed two lives.
Fruit bats are the natural reservoir of the Nipah virus and are considered the most likely source of repeated spillover events to humans, health experts say.
Indian authorities have repeatedly stressed the importance of early detection, isolation of cases and contact tracing to prevent the virus from spreading further.
