JAMBI. The Jambi Health Agency is anticipating the possible spread of the Zika virus in the province in the wake of an outbreak of the disease in a number of Latin American countries, an official says.
“We have instructed all heads of regency and city health agencies to carry out prevention efforts,” Jambi Health Agency head Andi Pada told thejakartapost.com in Jambi on Saturday.
The Zika virus had been detected in Jambi during an outbreak of dengue fever that hit the province from December 2014 to April 2015, said Eijkman Biological Molecular Institute deputy director Herawati Sudoyo as reported by kompas.com on Friday.
Andi confirmed that the Eijkman Biological Molecular Institute had carried out research on those afflicted with dengue fever in the province from 2014 to 2015.
After taking patients’ blood samples, he said, the institute noticed that many of the samples were not infected by dengue fever virus, and carried out further research into the samples. It was subsequently realized that one of the samples was infected by the Zika virus.
The main effort of the prevention efforts was to prevent the reproduction of Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes, which transmit dengue fever and the Zika virus to humans, Andi said. “We’re cooperating with schools to clean up the environment and eliminate the nests of the mosquitoes,” he explained.
The Zika virus was first discovered in Africa in 1947, but until last year, when it was found in Brazil, it had never been a threat in the Western Hemisphere.
The most common symptoms of Zika are fevers, rashes, joint pain and conjunctivitis. The illness is usually mild, with symptoms lasting for several days to a week, but there is mounting evidence from Brazil that infection in pregnant women is linked to abnormally small heads in their babies — a birth defect called microcephaly.
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