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WHO reports first three Zika virus cases in India
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Officials have confirmed the first three cases of Zika virus to surface in India, according to WHO.
India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) recently reported the laboratory-confirmed cases in Gujarat State, which sits on the country’s west coast and borders Pakistan to the north.
Early this year, Indian authorities began trials with genetically modified mosquitoes meant to suppress the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitos, the most prolific transmitters of Zika virus.
The first of the recently confirmed cases arose after 93 blood samples were taken at Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College (BJMC) between Feb. 10 and Feb. 16, 2016, during Acute Febrile Illness surveillance. A sample from a 64-year-old man with febrile illness for 8 days tested positive for Zika virus.
The second case was discovered after a 34-year-old woman gave birth to a “clinically well” baby at BJMC on Nov. 9, 2016, according to WHO. After the delivery and while still hospitalized, she developed a low-grade fever. The woman had no history of fever during her pregnancy and no history of travel in the previous 3 months. She, too, tested positive for Zika virus, although WHO did not specify whether the virus was passed to her child.
The third case surfaced during Antenatal Clinic surveillance, in which 111 blood samples were taken at BJMC between Jan. 6 and Jan. 12. A sample from a 22-year-old pregnant woman tested positive for Zika virus. As in the second case, WHO did not say whether the child was also infected.
WHO also did not specify how the virus was transmitted or the specific strain that infected the three individuals.
The Indian Council of Medical Research has tested 34,233 human samples and 12,647 mosquito samples for Zika virus, WHO reported. Nearly 500 of those samples were from Bapunagar area, which lies within Gujarat, but none tested positive for the virus.
In addition, India’s Integrated Disease Surveillance Program is tracking for clusters of acute febrile illness. The MoHFW is watching for any increases or clustering of microcephaly at 55 sentinel sites but has found none, WHO said. Other response measures include, among others, the monitoring of virus vector control measures at airports, and officials at laboratories are testing mosquito samples.
Although no Zika virus cases were previously confirmed in India, WHO has warned that infection is possible in any area in which Aedes mosquitoes are present. – by Joe Green
Perspective
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Annelies Wilder-Smith, MD, PhD, MIH
These first reported cases of Zika in India are of concern, but it is highly likely that they were not really the first cases. We need to remember that the Zika virus probably arrived in the Western Hemisphere from somewhere in the Pacific more than a year before it was detected. Researchers also found that as Zika fanned outward from Brazil, it entered neighboring countries and south Florida multiple times without being noticed.
The most pressing need is to now sequence the virus and ascertain whether it is the “old” Asian strain or whether it is identical or at least similar to the strain in Brazil, which we know causes congenital Zika syndrome including microcephaly. The risk for further spread of Zika virus to areas where the competent vectors, the Aedes mosquitoes, are present is significant given the wide geographical distribution of these mosquitoes in this part of the world.
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