Health department issues circular on Zika virus. Know its symptoms, prevention, treatment and who should test for Zika and when.
Karnataka is taking all possible measures to prevent the spread of the Zika virus after the state recently reported its first case of the infection.
A five-year-old girl in Raichur’s Koli Camp village tested positive for the vector-borne infection early this month. The Centre sent an expert team from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme to Karnataka to help the state contain the Zika virus.
Shankar Patil Munenakoppa, the minister in charge of the Raichur district, held a detailed discussion with the Karnataka health department officials and the central team on Thursday, 15 December, on the steps that have to be initiated to prevent a possible spread of the Zika virus.
After the meeting, the minister directed the health department to initiate measures to control the breeding of mosquitoes.
“There is a need to create awareness among people on why it’s important to keep the surroundings clean and prevent them from becoming mosquito-breeding sites. People should know about the problems mosquitoes can cause,” Patil told reporters after the meeting.
He also insisted that the district health department officials in Karnataka should take the Zika virus seriously. Besides creating awareness, they should also take up the initiative to control the breeding of mosquitoes, the minister said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday, issued a detailed advisory, explaining the Zika virus, and its status in Karnataka.
The circular said the first case was reported on December 3.
Tests for dengue and chikungunya were conducted on a five-year-old girl with viral fever on 14 November, the circular said.
Samples taken from the child were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. Tests conducted at the NIV confirmed the presence of the Zika virus.
The health department ruled out any epidemiological link to the Zika positive case. It also said the girl had no travel history to any Zika-infected geographical area.
Zika is an emerging disease caused by the Zika virus of the flavivirus family. It is closely related to dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile viruses. In humans, it is transmitted primarily by Aedes mosquitoes.
It got its name from Uganda’s Ziika forest, where the virus was first isolated in 1947.
Symptomatic attack rate among the infected is 198 and it affects all age groups. However, adults are more likely to get infected. The virus’s incubation period is three-14 days. It ranges from a few days to one week. Some infected pregnant women can have evidence of the Zika virus in their blood longer than expected. The virus remains in semen and urine longer than in blood.
So far there have been no reports of severe disease, hospitalisation or deaths.
Clinical illness is usually mild. Symptoms are fever, red eyes, headache, rashes, muscle pain, joint pain. Symptoms usually last for 2-7 days.
RT-PCR test on serum and urine during first two weeks after illness. Plaque reduction neutralisation test (PRNT) is conducted to check the presence of virus-specific neutralising antibodies in paired serum samples.