MALAYSIA’S Ministry of Health said on Saturday that they detected possibly the country’s first locally-transmitted Zika case in a 61-year-old man in Sabah on the Kalimantan island.
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Singapore confirmed 26 new cases of locally transmitted Zika virus infection as of Saturday, according to a joint statement released by MOH and National Environment Agency.
World Health Organization also noted Brazil has not reported any confirmed cases of Zika following the Olympics, boding well for a “low risk assessment” at the Paralympics.
On Thursday, the ministry had confirmed a Malaysian woman in Klang to be the first in the country to be infected with the virus after returning from Singapore last month.
NEA said that vector control remains key to reducing the spread of the Zika virus. “They were infected in endemic countries”, she reportedly said.
The Zika virus has mild effects on most people, but can be fatal for unborn children.
Researchers, however, are still unsure which species of mosquitoes spread the virus, and how the virus acts on its victims after being infected.
The global health agency convened experts this week to decide whether the Zika virus continued to constitute a public health emergency.
Scientists trying to predict the future path of Zika say that 2.6 billion people living in parts of Asia and Africa could be at risk of infection, based on a new analysis of travel, climate and mosquito patterns in those regions.
The United States, Australia and other countries have added Singapore to the growing list of places that pregnant women or those trying to conceive have been warned to avoid.
“Signs and symptoms of Zika usually begin three to seven days after being bitten. The virus from these two patients was not imported from South America”, the statement said. “The situation in Florida worsens each week, and now looming rainfall from tropical storms threaten to create a fertile breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry the virus”.
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One of the most fundamental questions in this current epidemic is why countries such as Brazil, the epicenter of the current epidemic, have reported almost 2,000 cases of microcephaly and other brain abnormalities, while countries such as Colombia have reported fewer than three dozen cases.
