Lini Puthussery, 33, was in the team that treated the first Nipah virus victim earlier this month.
The last message of a Kerala nurse, a young mother of two, before she died of the Nipah virus on Monday, has moved thousands. Lini Puthussery's husband will be offered a government job and her two boys, aged seven and two, will be given Rs 10 lakh each, the Kerala cabinet decided today.
Other victims of the virus will be given Rs 5 lakh each.
31-year-old Lini, who was in the team that treated the first Nipah virus victim earlier this month, wrote a heart-wrenching message to her husband in her last hours in an isolation ward at the Perambara hospital in Kozhikode, the epicenter of the Nipah infection.
"Saji Chetta, I am almost on my way. I don't think I will be able to see you. Sorry. Take care of our children properly. Our innocent child, take him to the gulf. They shouldn't be alone like our father. Lots of love..." she scribbled in the note that has been widely shared on social media.
Lini couldn't see her family before she died. After the family's permission, she was cremated quickly so the infection wouldn't spread.
There have been 13 confirmed cases of the Nipah virus, of which 10 have died, two are critical and one is stable. Over 90 people have been quarantined in their homes. The three who died first were all from the same family - two brothers in their early twenties and a woman relative who had been with them at the hospital.
The father of the brothers is reportedly being treated for the virus. Many bats were found inside a well of the family's home, and this is believed to be the origin of the infection.
The Nipah virus or NiV infection, spread mainly by fruit bats, has symptoms like breathing trouble, brain swelling, fever, headache, drowsiness, disorientation and delirium. A patient can fall into coma within 48 hours. It travels through direct contact with a patient.
There is no vaccine for the virus yet and the treatment is "intensive supportive care".