Share

Singapore mass sprays residences as Zika expected to spread

Miami Beach’s beloved botanical garden will be closed for at least three days as officials inspect and treat the area for mosquitoes that may be carrying the Zika virus.

Advertisement

The ministry said in a statement that the patients were “not known to have traveled to Zika-affected areas recently, and are thus likely to have been infected in Singapore. So we took her blood here and sent it to the lab at Tan Tock Seng”, he said, referring to the main national hospital for communicable diseases.

A gray alert advises people to pay extra attention to safety issues.

Zika, which has been detected in 58 countries and particularly Brazil, causes only mild symptoms for most people, such as fever and a rash.

She subsequently developed joint pain and red eyes but has been without fever, the city’s Centre for Health Protection said.

On Aug. 28, the local government issued an order to halt all work being done in the GuocoLand-owned construction site, where most of the infected foreign workers are staying. Further testings will be carried out on workers living in dormitories located within the areas of concern.

“Since Zika virus has emerged as a global health emergency, most research has focused on the virus and its effects on humans”. The company should also rectify the conditions in the area, which led to the breeding of the Zika-carrying mosquitoes.

Singapore confirmed 15 new cases of locally-transmitted Zika infections on Monday, taking the tally to 56 as authorities step up efforts to contain the outbreak.

Singapore, a major regional financial center and busy transit hub, which maintains a constant vigil against the mosquito-borne dengue virus, reported its first case of the Zika virus in May, brought in by a middle-aged man who had been to Brazil.

Around the region, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines have “possible endemic transmission or evidence of local mosquito-borne Zika infections in 2016”, the World Health Organization said.

The disease was detected in Brazil a year ago, and has spread to the US.

Singaporean health officials announced on August 29 that the number of locally transmitted Zika cases in the city has now reached 56 with the addition of 15 new cases.

Advertisement

In pregnant women, Zika can cause microcephaly, a deformation in which babies are born with abnormally small brains and heads. Other Asian countries with reported cases include Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

'The command centre coordinated 40 rescue operations that included vessels from Italy humanitarian organisations as well as the EU's border agency Frontex and'saved 6,500 migrants, the coastguard wrote on Twitter