Unlike Covid-19, the bat-borne Nipah virus is at a low risk of spreading, and Sri Lanka has not found a single patient infected with the virus so far. But that does not rule out the necessity to be vigilant about it, a former member of the World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Committee on Covid-19 and the head of the Sri Jayewardenepura University’s Immunology and Molecular Medicine Department, Prof. Neelika Malavige, told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
Prof. Malavige said this in response to the question whether the public should fear a potential Nipah virus outbreak in the country.
“The people should not panic or act in such a way to cause public panic. Being vigilant is different from behaving irrationally. A common sense approach is the best,” she said.
Director of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Dr. G. Wijesuriya, said yesterday there was no truth in what a particular social communication platform has circulated saying that the Lady Ridgeway Hospital was treating a Nipah patient.
Wijesuriya said there was no such instance and called upon the public not to be misled by such falsehoods. He asked the people to visit the hospitals without any fear of Nipah, as there had been no patients who had tested positive for the Nipah virus in the country.
Prof. Malavige said the surveillance, preparedness, and how to prevent the contracting of the virus would be of paramount importance.
“Although the Nipah virus does not spread as extensively as Covid-19, it is deadlier than Covid-19,” she said.
“In Kerala, where there have been about 21 Nipah cases, 33 percent of the infected patients have died. Unlike the Covid-19, symptoms are also severe,” she said.
“One could become infected with Nipah through contaminated food, such as eating poorly cooked pork or by drinking toddy, Kithul honey, palm wine, coconut honey, telijja, and related products that may have been exposed to bat-urine,” she said.
“The doctors have recommended keeping the flowers of the coconut, kithul, and palm trees covered when extracting their sap to avoid possible contamination due to the excreta and urine of bats,” she said.
