New Delhi: Kerala Health Minister Veena George on Tuesday said there are 675 people in the contact lists of the three Nipah infected persons in the state and 82 samples from Malappuram district have tested negative for the virus.

The minister, after holding a high-level meeting during the day, said in a statement that of the 675 people, 178 people were those who came into contact with the second confirmed case of Nipah from Palakkad.

The second Nipah case from Palakkad was that of a 57-year-old man who died on July 12 at a private hospital in the north Kerala district.

The other two cases are that of a Malappuram native who had recently died from the infection and another patient from Palakkad district who is undergoing treatment in Kozhikode.

Of the 675 persons on the contact list, 210 are from Malappuram, 347 from Palakkad, 115 from Kozhikode, two from Ernakulam and one from Thrissur districts of the state, the statement said.

The minister also said that 82 samples taken from patients in Malappuram have tested negative for the virus.

Besides that, one person in Malappuram is being treated in the ICU, while 12 are undergoing treatment in isolation wards in Palakkad and five persons have been discharged.

A total of 38 people are in the highest risk category and 139 in the high risk category in the state, she said.

Meanwhile, the Palakkad district administration said that the team from the National Institute of Virology team has collected samples of 160 bats and sent them to Pune for testing.

It also visited Kallamala in Agali during the day, it added.

The district administration also said that the Animal Husbandry Department has informed that no unnatural death among animals was reported during the day from the Nipah affected area and that a carcass of a bat has been collected for sample testing.

Additionally, entry and exit points of various wards of Kumaramputhur, Karakurussi and Karimpuzha panchayats and Mannarkkad municipality have been closed, it said.

On Monday, the health minister had issued a Nipah alert to hospitals across six districts.

The advisory was sent to medical facilities in Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, Wayanad, and Thrissur.

Hospitals have been directed to report any patients presenting with fever and symptoms resembling Nipah, including encephalitis and high-grade fever, the minister's office had said.

According to the WHO, Nipah virus is a zoonotic disease that spreads from animals to humans and can also be transmitted through contaminated food or via direct human-to-human contact.