“The ministry is now investigating the travel history of the patient in the recent period,”said the statement, noting that there is a high possibility that the infection was transmitted locally since the patient has not travelled overseas recently and it was likely he got bitten by an Aedes mosquito carrying Zika”.
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Dr Noor Hisham said that the patient’s blood and urine samples had tested positive for Zika, but his serious clinical condition could have been due to existing health afflictions and not the Zika virus.
It causes only mild symptoms for most people such as fever and a rash, but infected pregnant women can give birth to babies with microcephaly, a deformation marked by abnormally small brains and heads.
“The Health Ministry is investigating further the patient’s recent travel history”.
An Aedes aegypti mosquito is seen inside a test tube as part of a research on preventing the spread of the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases at a control and prevention center in Guadalupe, neighbouring Monterrey, Mexico, March 8, 2016.
The city-state announced the first locally contracted case of Zika last Saturday, and the number of diagnosed infections has grown steadily with total cases at 189 as of Friday.
Malaysia confirmed Saturday its first locally-transmitted Zika virus infection following the diagnosis of a 61-year-old man in eastern state Sabah.
Around 10 of them live and work in Singapore, while one person is working in Singapore but residing in Malaysia’s southern Johor state.
It added vector control measures have been taken in the residential area and other places visited by the patient.
Twenty-one Chinese nationals, 13 Indians, six Bangladeshis, and an Indonesian are also among the 115 cases of Zika reported in Singapore, foreign officials said.
Most people have no symptoms or mild illness.
Zika is carried by mosquitoes, which transmit the virus to humans, but a small number of cases of sexual transmission have been reported in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah says the deceased had other co-morbid conditions.
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Almost 80% of people infected with the virus will have no symptoms.
