Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur district recorded 25 new cases of Zika virus, ANI reported on Wednesday. There were 11 cases reported till Tuesday, officials told Scroll.in. This takes the state’s case count to 36.
“Health teams have been rushed to various places [and] contact tracing is being done,” said Kanpur’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Nepal Singh. “There is no need to panic.”
District Magistrate Vishak G Iyer said that the condition of all 25 patients was stable, The Times of India reported. “All the new patients are in home isolation and special teams have been constituted to monitor their health,” he said.
Iyer added that one patient from among the earlier 11 cases has been shifted to the Kanshiram Trauma Centre from home isolation.
The district magistrate said that six Indian Air Force personnel are among the new cases, PTI reported.
Iyer said that on Sunday, the health department collected blood samples of 586 people and sent them to the King George’s Medical University at Lucknow for testing. Out of these, 25 samples tested positive for the Zika virus.
The Zika virus is transmitted primarily by the Aedes mosquitoes, which bite during the day, according to the World Health Organization. It can also be sexually transmitted. Symptoms of the infection include fever, rashes, headache and joint pain.
Since last week, the Uttar Pradesh government has been taking measures to eliminate mosquito breeding spots to eliminate the virus. The government destroyed 117 mosquito breeding points in 10 localities of Kanpur by Sunday.
Data till October 31 accessed by Scroll.in showed that at least 12,729 households had been surveyed for mosquito larvae breeding, and it was detected in 296 houses.
A team from the central government has also collected samples from Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes in Kanpur. The virus from these mosquitoes will be isolated and tested in the National Institute of Malaria Research.
An official from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme said that at least 600 samples of close contacts of the 10 Zika patients have been sent to King George’s Medical University for testing on Sunday.
Kanpur’s chief medical officer said that areas within the three-kilometre radius of a patient’s location will be screened from Sunday.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath has requested the officials to undertake frequent and extensive door-to-door sanitisation and fogging drives to stop mosquito breeding.
Maharashtra and Kerala too have reported cases of the Zika virus this year.
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