KOZHIKODE: A day after the government announced a probe into whether six Nipah deaths were linked to the administration of expired medicine, Dr A S Anoop, a critical-care specialist who had dealt with some of the cases, asserted on Friday that none of those patients had received Remdesivir from Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital.
The treatment records and circumstances surrounding the deaths did not support the suggestion that the patients had received Remdesivir, Dr Anoop told TNIE. “Of the 13 people who tested positive for Nipah in the state between 2023 and 2025, six died and seven recovered.
None of the six who died had received Remdesivir from MCH, Kozhikode,” he said. However, he questioned why the department continued to stock the antiviral drugs after they had expired.
Meanwhile, Health Minister K Muraleedharan said the government would draw no conclusions until the expert committee completed its probe and submitted its report. He told reporters that the information presented in the assembly was based on reports from responsible health department officials.
“There are several doubts about the medicine, including whether it was administered after the sell-by date. We will investigate the matter before taking a decision,” he said.
Dr Anoop said, “Following the 2018 and 2019 outbreaks, we began administering Remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to Nipah patients. However, there is still no conclusive evidence of how far these drugs improve patient outcomes, as human studies remain limited.”
Recalling the 2023 outbreak, Dr Anoop said the first patient was admitted to MIMS Hospital, Kozhikode, where he works. Doctors began suspecting Nipah upon learning that the patient’s father had died with similar symptoms.
“The father’s samples were preserved at the hospital where he was treated. We sent samples from the father and son for testing, which confirmed Nipah. We managed to save the son, but his father died before infection was diagnosed. This establishes that the father was not administered Remdesivir,” he said.
‘Expired medicine not administered’
Another patient from Vadakara was referred to MIMS during the same outbreak but died of a cardiac condition. Nipah was confirmed only after samples were collected from the body posthumously, he said.
Dr Anoop said similar circumstances prevailed in subsequent outbreaks, with Nipah confirmed only after the patients had died. He said the allegation that expired Remdesivir had been administered to the deceased needed to be verified against their actual treatment records.
Former health minister K K Shailaja accused the UDF government of trying to discredit the state’s public healthcare system. “Expired medicine was not administered to Nipah patients. This was confirmed by former health minister Veena George. Let the probe proceed,” she said in Kozhikode on Friday.
Questioning the allegations, she said Remdesivir was an antiviral drug and its use in 2023 did not require clinical trials. She recalled that during the 2018 Nipah outbreak, the state had explored several treatment options, including Remdesivir and human monoclonal antibodies sourced from Australia.
Shailaja urged ministers and public representatives to exercise caution when commenting on medical matters, especially those that could undermine the credibility of the healthcare system.
