Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed as of Monday that 56 Zika virus cases were locally transmitted.
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Neighboring countries and regions are taking steps to prevent the spread of the disease from Singapore.
The 41 infected people living or working all in a suburb. Workers staying in dormitories found in areas of concern were also screened.
As of Monday, NEA officers have inspected about 5,000 premises out of an estimated 6,000 premises in the Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive cluster.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has caused explosive outbreaks in the Americas and the Caribbean since late a year ago, poses a particular risk to pregnant women because it can cause microcephaly, a severe birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.
Pregnant women and women planning to get pregnant have been urged to defer all non-essential travel to Singapore and exercise precaution against mosquitoes in the city-state. She is due to give birth this week. The Stop Work Order on the construction site at Sims Drive is still in force.
A total of 58 countries have reported cases of locally transmitted Zika virus infection.
On Sunday, the authorities said that none of those infected, including four Singaporeans from the same neighborhood, had traveled overseas recently to areas affected by the Zika virus.
For more about the Zika virus, head to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Because of patient privacy rights under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), no additional identifying information on either Mobile County case will be made available to the public.
“So now, Singapore flights will be among those to be closely monitored for Zika symptomatics”, she said.
Singapore’s first imported Zika case was reported in May after a man who visited Brazil began showing symptoms and was admitted to hospital.
Most of the early infections were among foreign workers, hundreds of thousands of whom, mainly from the Asian sub-continent, work on Singapore’s construction sites and in the marine sector. Symptoms include fever, skin rash, red eyes, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headaches.
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Contractors in protective gear carried out insecticide fogging in public places, pumping a mosquito-killing mist over large areas on the ground.
