A five-year-old girl from Raichur district has tested positive for Zika virus making it the first case in Karnataka, confirmed Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar.
After receiving a report from a lab in Pune on December 8, Sudhakar said, “This is the first case in the state and the government is monitoring the situation very carefully. Our department is well prepared to handle it.” Three specimens were sent for testing among which two were negative and one was positive.
The state government has said that a strict vigil is being kept with all necessary precautionary measures.
What is Zika virus?
Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that infects the Aedes species of mosquitoes and is transmitted to humans through biting. As per information released by the World Health Organisation, Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries the virus usually bites during the daytime.
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Since it is a mosquito-borne virus and hence, getting rid of mosquitoes is the safe way out.
To check the spread of the disease, health teams are undertaking sanitisation programmes including anti-larvae spraying and identifying fever patients, screening seriously ill people and pregnant women.
An outbreak of the Zika virus, which originated from a forest in Uganda and has affected several countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia so far, is a cause for concern for India.
States that have earlier reported cases
India reported the first case of the Zika virus on July 8, 2021. ZIKV viral RNA was detected through RT-PCR testing at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune, in a blood sample collected from the patient, a 24-year-old pregnant woman in her third trimester of pregnancy resident in Trivandrum district. A Zika outbreak was reported in Kerala when cases started to multiply. By the end of July, over 60 people had tested positive for the virus.
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In 2021, Maharashtra also reported the first case of Zika virus when a woman tested positive in the Pune district on June 30.
Further, the first case in Kanpur was reported on October 23 when an Indian Air Force (IAF) warrant officer tested positive for the Zika virus. Thirty more people tested positive for the Zika virus in Kanpur following the first case.
Samples were collected from various pockets in the neighbouring areas of IAF station hangars and sent to the lab at King George's Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow for testing.
Health officials were asked to step up surveillance and ensure door-to-door sampling and testing for the Zika virus following three outbreaks in India last year.
A high alert was sounded in the periphery of hangars of the IAF station, another official said. To check the spread of the Zika virus, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath directed the health department to ensure strict surveillance and to undertake frequent and extensive door-to-door sanitisation and fogging drives to prevent mosquito breeding.
