India on alert for Zika virus at tourist access point in Jaipur
India on alert for Zika virus at tourist access point in Jaipur
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has sent experts to try to contain an outbreak of the Zika virus in the popular tourist destination of Jaipur, capital of the northern state of Rajasthan, with close monitoring of pregnant women.
Twenty-two people in the city have tested positive, the health ministry said. There is no vaccine against the virus that can cause serious birth defects in unborn children.
Pregnant women in the area are being monitored by the National Health Mission, an agency created by the government to improve medical care throughout the country.
"The situation continues to be monitored regularly," the ministry said in a statement late Monday.
The International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers, based in Toronto, said it advised pregnant women to postpone trips to the area, part of the tourist "golden triangle" of India, Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, where the Taj Mahal.
Discovered for the first time in 1947, the Zika virus reached epidemic proportions in Brazil in 2015, when thousands of babies were born with microcephaly, a brain defect that affects speech and motor function.
It is the third such outbreak in India, the first in the western city of Ahmedabad in January 2017 and the second in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in July 2017. Both outbreaks were "successfully controlled," the government said.
The latest cases, in the middle of the festival season in the country where many Indians travel, which increases the risk of transmission, occur at a peak of other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, which kill thousands of people in India every year, according to the World Health Organization.
The capital, Delhi, has reported an increase in cases of dengue, with 169 reported in the first week of October and bringing the total of the year to 650, according to NDTV, citing figures from the Municipal Corporation of South Delhi that tracks diseases transmitted by mosquitoes. .
Edited by Sanjeev Miglani and Nick Macfie
.
.
SOURCE LINK ERESVIRAL.COM https://www.beviral.online
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario