And while we’re dealing with the haze, Zika is here
ZIKA is here. We’d rather not say “finally”, since we’ve been warned about it so many times that it seemed like a bad mantra. That exotic word by the way, refers to a disease spread by that dratted Aedes mosquito, the type which also spreads dengue.
We’ve been warned that we’re vulnerable because we have so many people going through Singapore. In May, Singapore reported its first imported case, a 48-year-old who travelled to Sao Paulo. It had seemed like something so far away, in Brazil, where pregnant women could pass the infection to the foetus who would be born with birth defects.
But Singapore’s latest Zika patient, a 47-year-old female Malaysian who resides at Block 102 Aljunied Crescent and works in Singapore, hasn’t travelled to Zika-affected areas recently. This means she was probably infected in Singapore which makes her the first case of local transmission.
MOH is also screening others living and working in the area who have symptoms of fever and rash. At this point, two members in a family who live in the Aljunied Crescent area and an individual who works there, had preliminarily tested positive based on their urine samples.
Don’t start panicking.
According to MOH: “Zika is generally a mild disease. It may cause a viral fever similar to dengue or chikungunya, with fever, skin rashes, body aches, and headache. But many people infected with the Zika virus infection do not even develop symptoms.” But pregnant women who live or work in the vicinity and who have a fever or rash should see a doctor.
The Malaysian, who developed fever, rash and conjunctivitis on August 25, is recovering well.
As for precautions, we should just do what we’ve always known we should do – wipe out the mosquito population. That might just rid us of the dengue fever scourge as well. Dengue has claimed seven lives so far. By the way, the Malaysian isn’t living in an active dengue cluster but there are two other clusters nearby.
Featured image from TMG file.
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