Two Vietnamese women tested positive for the Zika virus at the end of March. Among them, a woman who is 8 weeks pregnant. These first cases are thought to be due to the Aedes mosquito.
Vietnam is in turn affected by Zika. The Ministry of Health said Tuesday morning that two women were infected with this virus transmitted by the mosquito Aedes, widely present in Asia.
She is a 64-year-old woman living in the seaside town of Nha Trang and a 33-year-old pregnant woman in Ho Chi Minh City, the economic capital of the country. The latter would be 8 weeks pregnant, according to the Ministry of Health.
Both showed signs of the infection – fever, rash, joint and muscle pain – in late March. After undergoing a series of exams, they tested positive last week, authorities said.
Quarantine
Their health is stable, and no other cases have been reported in their family or neighbors. Since they have not traveled to areas where the Zika epidemic is rife, the ministry believes the infection is due to a mosquito carrying the virus. As a result, the health authorities placed their neighborhood in quarantine and took blood samples for diagnostic tests.
The Zika virus is far from being a foreigner in Asia. It arrived in the region in the 1970s, and is now endemic. However, until today, the fears concerned especially the dengue virus and the chikungunya which make several thousand sick each year. Countries in Asia are now worried about the Zika virus because of the devastation it is wreaking in South America, and in particular in Brazil. In less than a year, more than 900 children were born with microcephaly, which is 4 times more than the annual average.
Martinique: 2 confirmed cases of microcephaly
Since the arrival of the virus in Martinique, 106 pregnant women have been infected with the Zika virus. Among them, 2 cases of microcephaly and another fetal malformation were detected and confirmed, according to the latest epidemiological point from CIRE Antilles Guyane.
Currently, Guyana, Guadeloupe and Saint-Martin have not reported children with this birth defect.
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