The rapid spread of the dreaded Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), also known as monkey fever, has caused panic in the Adivasi areas of Wayanad district where majority of Kerala’s tribespeople live. The district medical authorities have called for immediate Government intervention as the fever situation has begun showing signs of getting out of control.
According to District Medical Officer PV Sasidharan, out of the 185 people who had shown symptoms, 85 had been tested positive for monkey fever. “But what is appalling is the death rate. Of the 85 people confirmed to have contracted the disease, ten have died. A death rate of up to eight per cent can be acceptable but this is not normal,” he says.
Sources said that most of those who died due to the disease were under treatment and this had compounded the concerns. In this situation, the Government should send a special medical team to Wayanad for carried out a detailed study, the DMO said. A study had been carried out on monkey fever in Wayanad earlier.
The vaccination efforts are on in a bid to control the spread of the disease but Dr Sasidharan said this cannot ensure prevention or effective control. Vaccination is being done. But what the thrust should be on spreading awareness among the Adivasis about the precautions to be taken while going to the forests for work, he added.
The vaccine is effective but it cannot be administered on all the people as children below the age of six and grown-ups above the age of 60 have to be exempted.
Then there are those with particular diseases and disease conditions who cannot take the vaccine. In short, 30 percent of the people have to be exempted from vaccine administration.
Health workers in Wayanad say that they can only tell the Adivasis to take precautions while going to the forests for collecting produces but there is no exact information on the places in the forest which are infested with the carrier tick. “Extensive health surveys are needed to ascertain this. For this, special Government attention is needed,” said a Tribal Department coordinator.
The first death due to monkey fever was reported in Kerala in February from Pulpally in Wayanad. The first victim was an Adivasi woman and 15 others who had gone to the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary for work had then contracted the disease. The KFD was first noticed in the State among the monkeys of the Vallikkavu temple in Alappuzha district in April last year.
The disease, said to be endemic to South Asia and affecting 100 to 500 people annually, is a hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus belonging to family Flaviviridae which also causes yellow fever and dengue. Porcupines, rats, squirrels and mice are thought to be hosts for the disease for which the vector is a forest tick.