About 3 km northeast of the Jog falls in Karnataka’s lush Uttar Kannada district lies the quiet hamlet of Jiddi, home to about 800 families, mainly farmers growing arecanut, coconut and pepper.

On one side of Jiddi’s main street stretches a banner celebrating the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Barely visible on the other side is a nondescript poster about KFD, or Kyasanur Forest Disease, a potentially fatal viral illness that causes fever, low blood pressure and internal bleeding, KFD is endemic to this forested region.

In the third week of January 2024, local farmer Jayachandra (name changed) returned home early from his arecanut farm, unusually tired.

The next day, in a febrile state, he visited the local primary health centre (PHC) at Korlakkai, 2 km away. Even as a worried Jayachandra, 38, waited for laboratory test reports on a blood sample, his 54-year-old mother developed a fever. Jayachandra drove them both to Siddapura taluka hospital, 18 km away, where they were admitted.

The state’s first KFD death of 2024 had been recorded in the neighbouring district of Shivamogga. Another positive case had been identified at the same hospital where Jayachandra and his mother were eventually treated for 11 days with intravenous drips and fever medication.

In early March, back at his home in Jiddi, Jayachandra said he knew nothing about KFD until he was diagnosed. “It was never there in my village.”

A highly infectious tick-borne disease affecting humans and monkeys, KFD is caused by the Kyasanur Forest Disease virus (KFDV), a flavivirus belonging to the same family of viruses that cause dengue, Zika and yellow fever. The virus is transmitted when ticks carrying the virus bite humans or monkeys.

Until 2012, KFD cases were restricted to five districts in Karnataka—Shivamogga, Uttara Kannada, Udupi, Dakshin Kannada and Chikmagalur. In more recent years, against a backdrop of extensive deforestation, land use change and changing climate conditions, cases have emerged in other Western Ghats states including Maharashtra, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.




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