After Nipah Patient's Death In Kerala, Tamil Nadu Steps Up Fever Surveillance At Border

On Sunday morning, a 12-year-old boy, who was admitted to a private hospital at Kozhikode in Kerala with Nipah virus, died without responding to the treatment.

Representative Photo: AFP

Chennai: Following the death of a 12-year-old boy due to Nipah virus infection in Kerala, the Tamil Nadu government has stepped up fever surveillance at the inter-state borders on Sunday. 

Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian told news agency IANS that they had informed the senior health officials of nine districts sharing their border with Kerala to step up the fever surveillance shortly after the information about Nipah virus infection death was received. 

Quoting the minister, a report in IANS said that the state health department has shared information about Nipah virus to health officials across the state and has directed them to conduct fever clinics and camps on the borders. The health department has also intensified the steps to check the temperature of all those entering into the state from Kerala by road, the minister said, according to the report. 

The health department would be following the same protocols that they had adopted when Nipah cases were reported in Kerala earlier. 

According to the report, the minister said that they had set up thermal scanning facilities at the Chennai international airport and had also established an RT-PCR testing facility that can provide Covid-19 results within 13 minutes. Both the thermal scanning and RT-PCR testing facilities were stepped up following the reports about the new Covid-19 variant detected in South Africa. 

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu health secretary J Radhakrishnan has sent a message to all the district collectors and health officials directing them to be vigilant to prevent the spread of both Nipah and Zika virus in the state.