Nipah Virus would have gone unnoticed, if it werent for these Three Doctors

Considering the seriousness of the infection, Dr Anoop immediately spoke with two of his young colleagues, Dr Ajith K Gopan (Consultant in Critical Care) and Dr Ganga Prasad (Consultant and Dy. Chief of Critical Care Medicine), who agreed the fact that they were dealing with a new kind of symptoms likely triggered by an unknown virus.

“Then we asked his relatives whether anybody else had similar symptoms. They said three family members had similar symptoms. We asked them to come to the hospital and examined them. Of the three, the condition of two of them deteriorated rapidly. So, we realised we are dealing with an unusual and lethal situation,” Dr Anoop told the New Indian Express.

Later, on the same day, the doctors sent body fluid samples of the four patients to the Manipal Centre for Virus Research in Karnataka. The doctors consulted with the neuro department and came to the conclusion that it was Nipah.

"Encephalitis from the herpes simplex virus is sporadic and rarely occurs within a family. Japanese encephalitis doesn't occur within a family, either - you see about one case in a village during an outbreak," Dr Arunkumar, Manipal Centre for Virus Research told the Telegraph. "The rapid deterioration and the cluster from a family were warning signs of Nipah."