According to Ubial, most of the water containers found by the personnel were found to be mosquito breeding sites and tested positive for larvae/pupae of Aedis aegypti, the principal mosquito vector for the Zika virus.
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Their cases will be monitored for one month to enable the DOH to determine the extent of local transmission of the Zika virus in the country.
“Although it is not certain that these types of close contact were the source of transmission, family contacts should be aware that blood and body fluids of severely ill patients might be infectious”, the officials wrote in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Pregnant women and those planning to get pregnant are also advised to be vigilant.
Dr. Jessie Glen Alonsabe, chief epidemiologist of DOH-6 in Western Visayas region, said that the additional two people with Zika virus were mainly asymptomatic.
TWO more people in Iloilo who are living in the same household have tested positive for the Zika virus, Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said Tuesday.
Dr Opas Kankawinpong, deputy director-general of the Department of Communicable Disease Control, said Asean public health ministers would participate in next week’s teleconference to update each other on the situation and work together to boost each country’s ability to tackle the Zika virus.
“It does raise the possibility that there was potential exposure to the blood and bodily fluids of the index patient, and that could have led to transmission of the second case”, Kallen said. Patients also should immediately alert the National Blood Centre, its regional offices or blood donation service points at hospitals.
There are now 64 non-travel related Zika infections. Nor have officials found any evidence of either mosquito species that transmit the virus, Dunn said.
Health officials were only able to determine the individual helped provide care to an elderly male family contact, reportedly the person’s father, who contracted the Zika virus overseas.
Zika is also a particular threat to pregnant women as their unborn babies could be affected by the virus, resulting in microcephaly, an abnormal smallness of the head.
She said except for mild skin rashes, the two new cases were not accompanied by other signs and symptoms unlike the first confirmed case.
The agency visited 88 households located around and near the residence of the three cases.
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“Since January, we have recorded about 200 cases and over the past three weeks, we have confirmed an average of 20 new cases per week”, Ministry of Public Health spokesman Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoenchai said.
