Head of the Health Ministry’s Department of Preventive Medicine Professor Tran Dac Phu yesterday confirmed an infection case of Zika in the central province of Phu Yen.

The 27 year old man in Tan Hoi village in Son Hoa District had fever and muscle pain on June 27 and rashes appeared on his body. A rash is one of the known symptoms of Zika, an airborne virus spread through the bite of an Aedes variety mosquito.

Soon he was rushed to the district General Hospital where doctors suspected him to have dengue fever; accordingly his blood was sent for testing.

Test result showed he is negative with dengue fever. He was discharged from the hospital on July 7. Since then he has never gone far from the village.

Though his test result confirmed he is negative with dengue fever, the local Preventive Medicine Department has still sent it to the Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang for further test. The institute July 28 confirmed the man is positive for Zika.

Right after receiving reports from Pasteur Institute, the Department of Health in Phu Yen Province isolated the man and his neighbors in order to curb the spreading.

As per a further investigation, no more case of Zika infection in Tan Hoi village has been recorded.

According to the World health Organization, Zika virus disease is caused by a virus transmitted primarily by Aedes mosquitoes. People with Zika virus disease can have symptoms including mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache. These symptoms normally last for 2-7 days. There is scientific consensus that Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Source: SGGP