NEW DELHI, Sept 15: India will procure 20 more doses of monoclonal antibody from Australia for the treatment of Nipah, the director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Rajeev Bahl said on Friday.
“We got some doses of monoclonal antibody from Australia in 2018. Currently the doses are available for only 10 patients,” he said. According to him, no one so far has been administered the medicine in India. “Twenty more doses are being procured. But the medicine needs to be given during the early stage of the infection,” he said, adding it can only be given as “compassionate use medicine.”
Mr. Bahl also said mortality among the infected is very high in Nipah (between 40 and 70%) compared to the mortality in COVID, which was 2-3%. He asserted that all efforts are on to contain the spread of the virus in Kerala.
On why cases keep surfacing in Kerala, Bahl said, “We do not know. In 2018, we found the outbreak in Kerala was related to bats. We are not sure how the infection passed from Bats to humans. The link couldn’t be established. Again we are trying to find out this time. It always happens in the rainy season.”
“Only phase 1 trial to establish the safety of the medicine has been done outside. Efficacy trials have not been done. Globally monoclonal antibody have been given to 14 patients infected with Nipah Virus outside India and all of them have survived. The decision to use the antibody, however, has to be of the Kerala government’s, besides that of doctors and also families of patients, he said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
