Nipah virus in Kerala is Bangladesh variant, less infectious, high mortality rate: Kerala Health Minister

India's Kerala government said in the assembly on Wednesday that the brain-damaging Nipah virus, which has killed two people out of four infected, was a strain of the Bangladesh variant that spreads from human to human. Kerala Health Minister Veena George said that the variant has a high mortality rate but was less infectious.

George confirmed that the recent "unnatural deaths" in state's Kozhikode district were a result of the virus. As reported by Reuters, one of the people affected with the virus died this month, while the other death occurred on 30 August.

This is the fourth Nipah outbreak in Kerala since 2018. Out of 23 infected people, 21 died when Kerala first reported the Nipah outbreak in 2018. In 2019 and 2021, Nipah claimed two more lives. There are no treatments or vaccines against the virus. The virus is transmitted to humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected bats, pigs or other people. It was first identified in 1999 during an outbreak of illness affecting pig farmers and others in close contact with pigs in Malaysia and Singapore.