Fever gripping Cherthala may be West Nile fever

Alappuzha, Oct 2 (UNI) An expert from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has expressed the view that the fever which has taken a toll of 57 lives in Cherthala, near here, is West Nile fever and not Chikungunya as thought so far.

Though the symptoms witnessed in the patients prompted doctors to conclude it was Chikungunya, which has hit all the four southern districts, Dr R Rajendran of NICD says Chikungunya is not so deadly.

Dr Rajendran, Assistant Director, NICD Kozhikode Regional Office, told UNI today it was possible the fever gripping Cherthala taluk was West Nile Fever.

After a two-day visit to Cherthala, he said symptoms of West Nile were similar to Chikungunya. These were high fever, tiredness, red eyes, photophobia, stiff neck and joint pains. But West Nile affected brain function. Mortality rate was about ten per cent.

The fever, believed to have wiped out the flourishing Egyptian civilisation on the banks of the Nile, reportedly reappeared in Kenya and some other African countries. The fever was reported earlier in India too, Dr Rajendran said. In 1980, at the Sree Chithira Institute of Medical Sciences at Thiruvananthapuram, 856 serum samples were tested and West Nile antibodies were found in 48.6 per cent cases. Dengue was found in 36 per cent and Chikungunya in three per cent.

In a later instance, 67 samples were sent to National Institute of Virology in Pune from Kottayam Medical College Hospital to check for Japanese Encephalitis. The results showed that four cases were West Nile, Dr Rajendran said.

The carriers of the West Nile virus are Monsonia and Qulex mosquitoes. The prevalence of Monsonia in Cherthala is quite high.

The incubation period of the West Nile virus in the human body is three to 15 days. It has no specific medicine and treatment is symptomatic.

West Nile can also be transmitted by blood and breast-feeding.

Horses, dogs, cats, birds, bats and seasonal flies are the virus reservoir of West Nile, Dr Rajendran said.

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