The Jamaican Ministry of Health said in a statement a child with the confirmed case of the virus started showing symptoms earlier this month when she returned home from a trip to Texas.
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Efforts to combat Zika are focussed on protecting people from being bitten and on eradicating mosquitoes, a tough task in many parts of Latin America, where people live in poverty and there are plentiful breeding grounds for the insect.
The virus poses a more serious problem for women who are pregnant, though. Imported cases have been reported in several European countries. Now there is a growing concern about the virus’s presence in the U.S. According to the CDC, there have been 31 cases of the Zika virus across 11 states.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, no confirmed cases of Zika have led to death, and symptoms normally last no longer than a week. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes.
Currently, people in the continental United States can only contract Zika if they travel to an area with a Zika epidemic.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for calm over the panic of the Zika virus in Pakistan and said that there is no such threat to the country at the moment.
Researchers suspect a link between the the birth defect microcephaly in infants and pregnant women with the virus.
Aedes mosquitoes are now not found in Hong Kong, the Health Department said, but the secretary said that other species of mosquito present in the territory are also considered as possible carriers of the disease.
With 20,000 people confirmed as having the virus, Colombia is now the second most infected country in the world after Brazil.
Experts say most people don’t experience severe symptoms when dealing with the virus. The virus appears to cause microcephaly, a condition where the baby’s head is smaller than normal and the brain has not developed normally.
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Pakistan should also issue a strict travel ban on pregnant women and couples that are travelling to the affected countries.
