Containment steps in Kozhikode after Ramanattukara man tests positive for Nipah

The Kozhikode district administration has begun containment steps in the wake of a 43-year-old man from Ramanattukara testing positive for Nipah infection on Thursday.

Addressing the media in Kozhikode, District Collector M.S. Madhavikutty said that the patient was undergoing treatment at the intensive care unit of the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, and was on ventilator support.

An isolation ward had been set up earlier there. Ms. Madhavikutty said that there were 77 persons on the contact list of the patient.

Meanwhile, surveillance and containment steps had been taken in Ramanattukara municipality. A meeting of the rapid response team was convened. Arrangements had been made to provide personal protection equipment, gloves, and face masks. Medicines had also been kept ready.

Ms. Madhavikutty said that the Health department would work in coordination with the departments of Animal Husbandry and Forest and Wildlife as part of the ‘One Health’ approach. “The Forest department has been asked to find out if there had been any mass deaths of bats in roosting sites. The Animal Husbandry department has been asked to see if infections had been reported in animals,” she added.

According to sources, the infected person, a businessman, had high fever and other symptoms of encephalitis. It is learnt that he had taken a godown on rent for business purposes. He is reported to have cleaned the building in May. Health department officials suspect that he may have come into contact with the excreta of bats during the clean-up process. Another suspicion is that he could have eaten fruits from a sapota tree on his residential premises.

Following this, he has had high bouts of fever. Though he had sought treatment in a nearby private hospital initially, his condition did not improve significantly. He was later admitted to a private hospital in Kozhikode city earlier this week. His body fluid samples were sent for lab tests after the doctors suspected Nipah infection. The patient was admitted to the isolation ward at the Kozhikode MCH on Wednesday night (June 10, 2026). The samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune after initial tests at the medical college lab turned positive for the infection.

This is the fourth time the deadly zoonotic disease is being reported from the district. The first ever Nipah outbreak in Kerala was in Kozhikode in 2018. The district had a spillover case in 2021 and another outbreak in 2023. The infection has a high mortality rate. Spillovers are single instances of the infection while outbreaks include human-to-human transmissions.