Is Cherthala in grip of West Nile Fever?

Alappuzha, Oct 2 (UNI) Is the killer fever raging in Cherthala taluk, where 57 people have died of fever, West Nile Fever? While all the symptoms seen in the patients have made the doctors suspect that the fever is Chickunguniya, Dr R Rajendran of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) says that Chickunguniya is not so deadly.

Dr Rajendran, who is the Assistant Director of the Kozhikode regional office of the NICD, told UNI today that it was possibile that the fever gripping Cherthala is West Nile Fever and not Chickunguniya.

Dr Rajendran, who was on a two-day visit to Cherthala, said all the symptoms of West Nile were similar to Chickunguniya. It mainly affects the functioning of the brain. Severe fever, tiredness, red colour of eyes, photophobia, neck stiffness and joint pains are the common symptoms of West Nile. Its mortality rate is about ten per cent.

The fever, which is said to have wiped out the flourishing Egyptian civilisation on the bank of the Nile River, is reported to have appeared in Kenya and some other African countries.

The disease has been reported earlier in India also, Dr Rajendran said. In 1980, at the Sree Chithira Institute of Medical Science at Thiruvananthapuram, 856 serum samples were tested, of which the antibodies of West Nile were found in 48.6 per cent cases, of Dengue Fever in 36 per cent and Chickunguniya in just three percent.

Later, 67 samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune from the Kottayam Medical College Hospital to check for Japanese Encephalitis. The result from Pune 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 medicine and the treatment is symptomatic.

The West Nile disease 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.

UNI XR ARC DK1549