3 Zika Cases Found In Ilo-Ilo City, DOH
The Department of Health (DOH) has recently confirmed that there are now 3 Zika cases confirmed in the Philippines, all found in Ilo-Ilo City.
In a report by PhilStar, the said addition of the cases now counts eight in the cases that have been recorded in the Philippines since 2012, as confirmed by DOH Secretary Paulyn Ubial.
According to her, the latest cases were based on test results done at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. Ubial added that “both are living in the same household as the index or sixth Zika case.”
It has been also mentioned that the mode of transmission was through mosquito bites.
Ubial mentioned that both cases “presented mild skin rashes and not accompanied by other signs and symptoms unlike the index case, who has joint pains and red eyes, aside from skin rashes.”
She added that all three cases have then recovered and did not require hospitalization and none of the patients were pregnant.
The report said that the DOH had tested 12 individuals who had contact with the index case, but, the two were the once who resulted positive.
The Health Secretary said that the local transmission was confined within the affected household. She added that there will be a continuous monitoring of suspected cases for the next month to be done by DOH in order to determine the “extent of local transmission in the country.”
As the DOH had an investigation on the cases, there are 88 households visited and found that most of the water containers in these households have lava or pula of Aedes aegypti, a kind of mosquito which is connected to the spread of dengue fever, Zika, and chikungunya.
In order to lower the chances of spreading Zika and other problems, the DOH urged all local government units to step up environmental cleanup drives to get rid of mosquito breeding sites.