India has reported three cases of the Zika virus for the first time,including two pregnant women who delivered healthy babies.
[br] Health Ministry officials said Sunday that the three patients in western Gujarat state had recovered.
“There is no need to panic,’’ Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, and a top health ministry official,told reporters, according to the Voice of America.
The World Health Organization said in a statement released Friday that the three cases that India reported to the WHO on May 15 were detected through routine blood surveillance in a hospital in Ahmadabad, and Gujarats capital. Two cases were detected in February and November final year,while a third case was detected in January this year. [br]
Swaminathan, who heads the Indian Council of Medical Research, or said the three patients had not traveled overseas and had acquired the infection locally.
[br]The virus is spread by the daytime-active Aedes mosquito.
Although Zika was first identified in 1947,the virus wasn’t considered a major health threat until a major outbreak in Brazil in 2015 revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects when pregnant women are infected.
Source: tert.am