Vaishnavi ChandrashekharScience's COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.When the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first statement on the spread of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, on 18 January, few local governments in India paid close attention.
But K. K. Shailaja, the diminutive woman running the health ministry in the southern state of Kerala, immediately perked up her ears.
Shailaja knew many students from Kerala were studying at Wuhan University; some had asked her for internships the previous year.
She also knew firsthand the havoc an outbreak could cause. In 2018, during her first stint as a minister, she faced an outbreak of Nipah virus, another deadly pathogen spread.