Kerala, a south Indian state witnessed several outbreaks of Nipah encephalitis since 2018, a zoonotic viral disease with significant pandemic potential. This review highlights the relevance of surveillance and health system preparedness, infection control, early diagnosis and treatment with broad-spectrum antivirals, environmental conservation, and community engagement in mitigating Nipah outbreaks. Additionally, it emphasises the importance of developing new biologicals and anti-viral drugs to combat the disease. The article discusses the available evidence on the spillover mechanisms, genetic attributes of the circulating virus, ecological factors, risk of hospital-based superspreading, treatment outcomes and successful strategies employed in Kerala in response to the recurrent Nipah outbreaks.
Copyright: © 2024 Anish et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.