Kerala Health Minister Veena George said on Friday that the health condition of four Nipah virus-positive patients, including the 9-year-old boy, now on ventilator support, is stable.

Addressing a press conference here, George said one more person hailing from Cheruvannur in Kozhikode Corporation has been reported as an active Nipah virus patient.

It is suspected that all the patients under treatment were infected with the virus from a person who died on August 30 at Kuttiyadi, she said.

The minister said the government has decided to test all those who are under high-risk contacts, even though they did not have any symptoms like fever. 

The testing will be done with the help of mobile laboratories of ICMR's National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune (Bio safety Level-3) and Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram, as part of combating the deadly virus. 

RGCB mobile lab has two machines that can test 192 samples at a time and if needed the mobile labs will function 24x7 for sample collection.

Tourism minister P A Muhammed Riyas has said the combat and preventive measures to check the spread of Nipah virus are being taken fast and there is no need to panic.

However, the people should be conscious.

(With UNI inputs)