THERE have been no cases of local transmission of the Zika virus, even though five people have been infected, Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial said as she called on travelers to reconsider plans to visit five countries affected by the virus–Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand.
In a news conference, Ubial said the five reported cases got the virus from other countries before they returned to the Philippines.
“We can say we have no local transmission. No Zika virus is moving here,” said Ubial, adding that the five have been declared virus-free after completing the required incubation period.
The Health chief also said the department has tested 86 travelers with fever, which they yielded negative results for the virus.
She said they procured additional kits to deal with the Zika scare.
The Philippine Embassy in Singapore, Ubial said has not reported any Filipino infected with the virus.
“There are no reports of infected Filipinos from other countries either,” she said.
Singapore has so far reported 82 cases of Zika, while Malaysia confirmed its first Zika case.
Ubial said if a traveler suspected of contracting the Zika virus develops a fever, he or she should practice safe sex since the virus stays in the blood for six months. She said the virus can also be transmitted through blood transfusion.
While the Zika virus is mild and non-fatal to the general population, she said it can pose a danger to babies in the womb. Infection during pregnancy can result in babies with small heads—a condition called microcephaly—and other brain defects.
At the same time, the Health chief also urged Filipinos to cooperate in filling out the health declaration checklist distributed at the airport, and to also intensify efforts to rid their communities of mosquito breeding places.
She noted that eradicating mosquitoes and destroying their breeding habitats remain the best defense against Zika virus.
Preventing the local mosquito population from growing will not only help curb the spread of the Zika virus, but can also reduce cases of dengue and chikungunya in the Philippines.
“Be a good citizen and avoid bites and spreading Zika, and also protect your family from mosquito bites. We are calling on everyone to watch out for fever among family members coming from Zika endemic countries and call our hotline should they develop fever within seven days.”
For concerns, she said the public can call the DoH through hotline numbers (02) 711-1001 to 02, or through the citizen’s concern hotline number 8888.
DoH Bureau of Quarantine Deputy Director Dr. Ferchito Avelino said they are strictly monitoring travelers arriving from the five countries and were exerting best efforts to monitor all ports of entry.
At least 2.6-billion people, over a third of the global population, live in parts of Africa, Asia and the Pacific where Zika could gain a new foothold, researchers warned Friday, with 1.2 billion at risk in India alone.
These are people who reside in as-yet unaffected parts of the world with the right climate and abundant mosquitoes for the virus to settle, spread and propagate an epidemic like the one besetting the Americas and Caribbean, they said.
“According to our most conservative scenario, populations living within the geographical range for Zika virus were highest in India (1.2-billion people), China (242 million), Indonesia (197 million) Nigeria (179 million), Pakistan (168 million), and Bangladesh (163 million),” said the study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
This is a theoretical possibility, however.
Whether or not the mosquito-borne virus would take off in any of these countries would be determined largely by a crucial unknown factor: Do the people there have immunity?
Sporadic cases of Zika have previously been reported in Africa and Asia, but nobody knows whether they were widespread enough for populations to acquire resistance to the virus.
Another mystery is whether immunity to the African Zika strain would offer protection against the Asian strain currently in circulation.
“If Zika immunity is widespread, introduced Zika will fizzle out fast,” Derek Gatherer of Lancaster University said in a comment on the study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
“On the other hand, if it enters another unprotected population, we may see a repeat of what we have already seen in Brazil and other parts of Latin America.”
The research team used air travel data, maps of mosquito spread and climate conditions, and information on population density and health spending to draw up an epidemiological risk model.
Benign in most people, Zika has been linked to a form of severe brain damage called microcephaly which causes newborns’ heads to be abnormally small, and to rare adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which can result in paralysis and death.
In an outbreak that started mid-2015, 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. Seventy countries and territories have reported local mosquito-borne Zika transmission, with Brazil by far the hardest hit.
Seventeen countries have reported cases of microcephaly or other central nervous system malformations in babies, and eighteen signalled an increase in GBS, according to the World Health Organization.
There have also been rare cases of person-to-person sexual transmission.
“As the Zika virus epidemic in the Americas intensifies and expands, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of infected travellers are now transporting the virus to distant regions of the world,” the researchers wrote.
If an infected person arrives in an unaffected country, Zika can spread if a local mosquito feeds on that individual, picks up the virus, and transfers it to another human with its next blood meal.
“The potential for epidemics to occur in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific region is particularly worrying given the vast numbers of people who are potentially susceptible to Zika virus and are living in environments where health and human resources to prevent, detect and respond to epidemics are limited,” said the paper.
A key risk area identified was Angola, due to its strong cultural ties, and travel links, with Brazil.
The southern African country has an ongoing epidemic of yellow fever, caused by a virus which, like Zika, is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
In Asia, India was particularly at risk, the team found.
China received many times more travelers per year from Zika-affected parts of the Americas, but spent more on health care.
The study authors “have produced a helpful guide to where our surveillance should be concentrated,” said Gatherer. With AFP