Zika discovered from Male’, nation-wide screening to commence

Health Protection Agency (HPA) has announced both Maldivians who tested positive for the zika virus were diagnosed from Male’ City.

HPA’s epidemiologist, Dr. Ibrahim Afzal reported this Saturday that the two Maldivians were diagnosed with zika following tests done from Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in November.

The results were confirmed by sending samples for analysis out of the country.

Dr. Afzal reported that both the Maldivians contracted zika from within the country.

Both the patients have since recovered.

State authorities started screening for zika virus in January, when it started spreading in South America at an unprecedented speed. 517 Maldivians who showed symptoms of zika have since been tested, all of which came negative expect for the tests done on the two Maldivians in November.

Dr. Afzal reported that HPA was working on setting up a mechanism to take samples from across the country and transport it to Male’ to test for zika.

He said the system will be launched the coming week.

Zika virus is transmitted through Aedes mosquitoes – which also transmit dengue and chikungunya.

Dr. Afzal said that the risk of an outbreak was high, but that he cannot pinpoint areas in Maldives were the risk is higher.

HPA previously reported three cases where the zika virus was discovered from foreigners visiting Maldives; the first, a Finland national who left Maldives in January, followed by two tourists – a German and a Spaniard who visited the country in summer.

Only 80 percent of those infected with zika show any physical symptoms; 20 percent show symptoms such as high fever, red rashes, body ache, headaches, and pain in joints.

Center for Disease Control (CDC) of US reports the virus is also known to cause microcephaly to infants born to parents infected with zika.

Microcephaly is a homozygous mutation in one of the microcephalin genes causing the skull to stop developing.