Nipah Virus: A fear of bats and WhatsApp rumours

On Tuesday morning, Viswanathan, in his 30s, was hard at work at his small shop near Soopikada cleaving long pieces of wood to be shaped into chairs, desks and cabinets. But every five minutes or so, his face, partially and loosely covered by a cotton handkerchief, would glance up to the top of a mahogany tree, standing a few feet away, where a few dozen bats hang upside-down.

“This is their centre. If you come after 6 in the evening, you will find hundreds of them on this tree,” he chuckled.

For years, Viswanathan never paid any attention to the bats or their constant squeaks. But now, he has a reason to be vigilant. The flying mammals, which hunt for food mostly in the night, are now suspected by health officials and government authorities to have sparked a major virus outbreak in northern Kerala, particularly in the region near Perambra in Kozhikode district.

Till Tuesday evening, a total of ten people had died with two others in critical condition in hospitals. The virus, known as Nipah, had first been reported in a village in Malaysia in the late 90s and had been known to have been transmitted by pigs. But over the years, similar outbreaks in Bangladesh and Nadia and Siliguri districts of West Bengal were thought to have been carried by bats.

“Never have they (the bats) caused us any problems, but now we are a bit afraid. But what do we do? My shop is right here and I can’t leave work and go,” he complains. “I went to the medical shop to buy a mask and the guy says the medical representative who was supposed to bring masks is too scared to come here. Entha cheyya (What to do!).”

It’s true that the fear is very much palpable and evident in the households and tiny, narrow lanes that dot the village panchayat of Changaroth, 45 kilometres from the city of Kozhikode. The fear is best symbolised by the empty, haunted look of the local taluk hospital where more than a hundred patients asked to be discharged fearing infection. The first victims of the outbreak were initially admitted here earlier this month.

One can also spot many men and women walking on the roads sporting loose cloth masks, strapped around the face, which are available at the taluk hospital for Rs 2. Whether these masks are even required to fight a virus, which anyway does not spread through air, is another matter. But it is clear that the virus is the main topic of conversation among the locals who are huddled together in small circles wondering how it ever, of all the places, came uninvited into their homes.