Vibrio cholerae
Dr. Nair was awarded the Certificate of Merit by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia, in recognition and appreciation for his outstanding contribution to Public Health Education for Vibrio cholerae and Cholera in March 1994. On 5 January 1998 he was awarded the Professor S.C. Mahalanobis Memorial Award from the Physiological Society of India and delivered the Memorial Oration at the Indian Science Congress at Hyderabad. He was awarded the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar for Medical Sciences in 1998 for his contributions which led to the discovery of the new cholera causing serogroup now globally known as Vibrio cholerae O139 Bengal and for his contributions on describing a cell-rounding factor from strains of Vibrio cholerae.