The city-state’s environment agency workers have been ramping up efforts to eradicate mosquitoes in a bid to curb the spread of the disease, expanding a fumigation campaign centered on the “ground zero” of the outbreak in the eastern suburb of Aljunied.
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Since the outbreak began a year ago, more than 1.5 million people have been infected with Zika in Brazil, and more than 1,600 babies born with abnormally small heads and brains. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said 16 other mosquito traps in the county tested negative and tests on other samples are ongoing.
Dr. David Heymann, the committee’s chairman and an infectious-disease professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said Friday that considerable gaps remain in understanding Zika and the complications it causes – including babies with serious neurological problems – and World Health Organization concluded that the outbreak remains a global emergency.
The money comes on top of $16.4 million already awarded to states and territories for monitoring birth defects caused by Zika, and $5.5 million available to public health departments to respond to Zika-exposed pregnant women.
The Zika outbreak comes as Singapore prepares to host the floodlit Formula One Singapore Grand Prix motor-race on September 18.
“The virus from these two patients was not imported from South America”.
The newspaper reported: “although she has been diagnosed with Zika, her family members have not been offered testing for Zika”.
Around 10 of them live and work in Singapore, while one person is working in Singapore but residing in Malaysia’s southern Johor state.
There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is a close cousin of dengue and chikungunya and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes.
“We can conclude that it is rather easy to get infected by the virus when visiting places that has outbreak, including Singapore”, he said.
In his first comments since the influx of Zika infections, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a Facebook post Thursday that “Our best defense is to eradicate mosquitoes and destroy breeding habitats, all over Singapore”. They voted yes, they announced at a news briefing Friday, in part because new infections had been reported in Singapore and Guinea-Bissau.
Video: Zika In Europe: What’s The Risk?
“Wala po tayong local transmission”.
The authorities have issued an advisory for pregnant women warning of travel to designated active transmission zones in Florida.
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The Burmese embassy in Singapore confirmed on Friday that a Burmese citizen is infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
