Maharashtra on Saturday reported its first case of the Zika virus as a 50-year old woman tested positive for the infection in Pune’s Belsa...
Maharashtra on Saturday reported its first case of the Zika virus as a 50-year old woman tested positive for the infection in Pune’s Belsar village, the Hindustan Times reported. Maharashtra is the second state, after Kerala, to report the vector-borne disease.
The patient in Maharashtra has, however, recovered now and is showing no symptoms, state surveillance officer Pradeep Awate told the newspaper.
The Zika virus is transmitted primarily by the Aedes mosquitoes, which bite during the day, as per the World Health Organization. It can also be sexually transmitted. Symptoms of the infection include fever, rashes, headache and joint pain.
“Of the three members in the family, the woman had the co-infection of Zika and chikungunya, her daughter had chikungunya fever while her son did not have any of the infections,” Awate told The Indian Express.
The woman developed symptoms on July 15 and her sample tested positive for Zika and chikungunya infections on July 30, the doctor said.
In Kerala, the first case of the virus was detected on July 8. Till Saturday, the state had recorded 63 infections. Of these, three patients were being treated, according to the Hindustan Times.
In Maharashtra, however, the 50-year old woman is the only confirmed case of Zika virus so far.
A team from the National Institute of Virology had collected 41 samples from Belsar and the neighbouring village...
