A pregnant woman who lives in the Swamp area of George Town has been infected with the Zika virus, public health officials said. The first confirmed case of a pregnant woman contracting the mosquito-transmitted virus was revealed at a public information meeting in the capital Tuesday evening, when Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr Samuel Williams-Rodriguez said that the Public Health Department had received five more positive tests of local transmission over the last week. There have now been 17 lab-confirmed locally-acquired cases of Zika and all of the patients are residents of George Town.
The pregnant patient has had an ultrasound and doctors stated that the results were clear. All pregnant women who are suspected of having contracted Zika are still being given free tests, and doctors said that the concern over microcephaly and other birth defects for expectant mothers relate mostly to the first trimester.
Meanwhile, public health officials also said that there are now nine confirmed cases of overseas transmissions in residents from Bodden Town and West Bay as well as George Town. Local transmissions have so far been confined to George Town, but Dr Rodriguez said the patients came from all across the capital and there was no specific area that could be identified as a hot spot. He said positive cases had been confirmed in residents from Prospect, South Sound, Seven Mile Beach, the Swamp, North Sound Road and Rock Hole.
With a total now of 26 confirmed cases in patients who picked up the virus abroad and locally, Rodriguez warned that the actual numbers will be much greater. Many more people will not know they have had the virus as around 80% of people who are infected are asymptomatic.
Currently, the Public Health Department said that they are still awaiting results for and are investigating several more suspected Zika cases and expect that there will be many more cases to come.
The MRCU is continuing its efforts to keep the numbers of Aedes aegypti down, especially in and around the capital. But Dr Bill Petrie, the unit’s director, urged people to do everything they could to eradicate standing water in and around their homes to eliminate breeding areas of the invasive mosquito, which lives so close to humans and bites in the day.
He also urged pregnant women and anyone who had concerns about mosquito levels around their home to contact the unit and he said staff would come and fog, as the team had caught up on the backlog of requests that had built up in George Town after an unprecedented number in recent weeks.
Some doctors around the world are now warning of a possible global epidemic of microcephaly and a generation of babies with birth defects caused by Zika.
The virus has now spread to 73 countries around the world and Brazil, which has been hard hit by the virus, is set to begin human vaccine trials in the next two months.(CNS)
