(Reuters) — China confirmed an imported case of Zika virus, the country’s first, the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) announced late Tuesday (February 9).
The patient, a 34-year-old male from Ganxian county of Jiangxi Province in the east, is now recovering with normal body temperature and fading rash.
He had traveled to Venezuela and showed symptoms of fever, headache, and dizziness on January 28, before returning to his hometown on February 5 via Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
He had been quarantined and treated in a hospital in Ganxian since Saturday.
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The NHFPC said that according to evaluation by public health officials and experts, the risk of further spreading of the virus due to this imported case is extremely low in the present low temperature.
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Symptoms of Zika virus, which spreads to people through mosquito bites, include fever, joint pain, rash, conjunctivitis, headache, muscle pain, and eye pain.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus linked to an outbreak of birth defects in Latin America could spread to Asia and Africa, the World Health Organization told a press briefing at its Geneva-based headquarters on last Tuesday.
Latin American health ministers on last Wednesday held an emergency meeting in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo to discuss the outbreak of the Zika virus and the response needed to combat the disease.
The ministers agreed to conduct a public information campaign and boost the number of medical workers to fight the mosquito-borne virus.
