Kyasanur Forest Disease, also known as monkey fever, has caused the death of a 27-year-old man from the Begur tribal hamlet on the Kerala-Karnataka border at a hospital in Kozhikode on Sunday.

This is the first case of KFD death since 2015 when 11 people were reported dead due to the disease in the Bairakuppa district of Karnataka. Currently, 6 cases of the monkey fever disease have been reported from Wayanad. The tribal youth, named Sundaran, who succumbed to the fever had been undergoing treatment the last ten days at the Kozhikode Medical College. “The deceased had gone for work in a timber yard near Begur where monkey deaths were reported recently. It is not confirmed whether he contacted the disease from there. We have collected samples from the ticks collected from the area to find out the source of infection,” the Wayanad district medical officer reportedly said. She added, “As many as 10 suspected KFD cases were reported in the district this year, of which five cases confirmed. Meanwhile, two persons, including a woman, admitted to the District hospital a few days ago, of which a case was referred to the MCH.”

Kyasanur forest disease (KFD) is a tick-borne viral hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus belonging to the family Flaviviridae, which also includes yellow fever and dengue fever. As the disease is passed on to humans via infected ticks found on monkeys, it is also called monkey fever. The symptoms of the disease include a high fever with frontal headaches, followed by hemorrhagic symptoms, such as bleeding from the nasal cavity, throat, and gums, as well as gastrointestinal bleeding.