Health Minister J P Nadda held a high-level meeting to take stock of the situation in view of the recent cases of Zika virus being reported from some countries.
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According to the Star Online, Deputy Health Director Datuk Dr Lokman Halim Sulaiman yesterday said the ministry was monitoring the spread of the virus and believed that the disease could spread to Malaysia.
With the first cases of the Zika virus being record in the United States, one as far north as Boston, concern has risen steadily about the spread of the disease and its effects. Aedes Aegypti mosquito carries Zika virus which is suspected to cause brain damage in babies. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, meaning it can be hard to tell if a pregnant woman has been infected.
More than two dozen in eleven states and Washington D.C. have tested positive for the Zika virus. We are completely unprepared and ill equipped to deal with the Zika virus if it was to cross our borders and this is a cause of great alarm.
Symptoms include fever, joint pain and redness in the eyes.
In Brazil, the Zika virus has been linked to cases of microcephaly, or abnormally small heads in newborns.
“The appropriate surveillance/response mechanisms for Zika virus infection and birth-defect complications will soon be operational at the ministry”.
“Calgary had another case just a couple weeks ago”, said Stan Houston, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Alberta.
Taylor says women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, consult a health-care practitioner before travelling to a region where the virus is circulating. All three cases are confirmed to be non-pregnant women who had traveled to either Colombia or Venezuela.
“Travelers can protect themselves by preventing mosquito bites”, the agency said in its recent travel warning.
“It’s from the mosquito, an infected mosquito that bites you and that’s when you can get the virus”.
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A Calgary restaurant owner, whose parents and sister live in Brazil, says he is very concerned about the disease, especially with many of his staff visiting the South American country.
