Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
A day after the total number of Zika virus cases soared to 105 in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited the city to review the outbreak today, on November 10 and assured that there is no need to panic.
The number of cases of Zika virus infections rose to 105 on November 9. It is for the first time that the mosquito-borne Zika virus infection has been reported in India’s most populous state.
“We’ve increased the number of health teams. I have taken a review of the situation. There is no need to panic… of the total 105 positive cases detected, 17 are now negative for the virus,” CM Adityanath was quoted.
Apart from Kanpur, a confirmed Zika virus case has been reported from the neighbouring Kannauj district too. Kannauj CMO Vinod Kumar told Gaon Connection that the person who tested positive for Zika virus had actually travelled to Kanpur.
“A team of experts is working to ascertain the cause of the outbreak,” Kanpur District Magistrate Vishak G Iyer told Gaon Connection. “Entomological studies are being conducted and samples of mosquitoes from the breeding sites are being studied for the presence of the Zika virus. Zika is found in at least one of the [mosquito] samples so far,” he informed.
The first case of Zika virus was reported in Kanpur, about 90 kilometres from the state capital Lucknow, on October 22 last month. Within two weeks, the infections rose to 89 by November 7. And today, the test report of a total of 472 samples arrived and 16 more people were found to be infected with Zika virus, taking the total confirmed patients to 105. There have been no deaths due to the virus so far.
Explained: What is the D2 variant of dengue that has wreaked havoc in Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad
There is no confirmation on the origin of the Zika virus infection in Kanpur as of now. As opposed to the other mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, encephalitis and chikungunya, the Zika virus can infect through sexual route.
“We cannot know for sure from where it [Zika virus in Kanpur] originated. When we conducted the contact tracing of the initial cases and assessed their travel history, the infected people were not found to have travelled in the recent past nor did they come in contact with a suspected case,” district magistrate Iyer said.
Uttar Pradesh’s first Zika case
Fifty-seven-year-old Mushtaq Ali, Master Warrant Officer in the Indian Air Force, is the first reported Zika virus case in Uttar Pradesh. Last month on October 22, Ali tested positive for Zika in Kanpur. Total caseload in the district now stands at 105.
Gaon Connection met Ali at Kanpur who informed that on October 13, he experienced heaviness in his throat and redness in the eyes. On intimating the medical staff at the station, his blood and urine samples were tested for a range of infections and finally on October 22, Ali tested positive for Zika — a first for Kanpur and Uttar Pradesh.
On being questioned about his travel history, Ali told Gaon Connection that he hadn’t travelled out of Kanpur for the last one and a half years.
“I was posted here in Kanpur in January, 2020. Since then, I have not travelled to any other place. But some of my colleagues at the Air Force station have travelled to their homes in Kerala,” Ali told Gaon Connection.
Having been discharged from the hospital on November 3, Ali, the case zero of Zika virus in Kanpur, is on a month-long leave from the Indian Air Force station.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), on 8 July this year, a Zika virus (ZIKV) infection was laboratory-confirmed in a resident of Kerala state. ZIKV viral RNA was detected through RT-PCR testing at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune, in a blood sample collected from the patient, a 24-year-old pregnant woman in her third trimester of pregnancy resident in Trivandrum district.
During the period from 8 July to 26 July, 590 blood samples were collected in Kerala state through active case finding and passive surveillance. Of them, 70 (11.9%) tested positive for ZIKV.
Meanwhile, on 31 July, Maharashtra state also reported its first Zika laboratory-confirmed case from Belsar, a village of 3,500 inhabitants located in Purandar taluka of Pune district.
So far, Zika cases have been reported from the states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in India. Of these, the WHO has classified Kerala and Maharashtra as states with moderate risk while for other three states the risk is considered low.
Complains of delayed Zika testing in Kanpur
Vikas Mishra, professor in the microbiology department of Kanpur’s Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial Medical College, told Gaon Connection that there was no Zika virus testing facility in the district and samples were being sent to the state capital Lucknow for testing.
“We have the machines and the laboratory to check the samples, we only need the testing kit. Efforts are being made to get the testing facility in Kanpur itself,” the professor said. “Since it’s a rare disease, private labs don’t have testing facilities as well,” he added.
District public health expert in Kanpur, Radheshyam Yadav, told Gaon Connection that often test results of Zika virus-infected patients were delayed.
Gaon Connection also talked to patients who mentioned that the testing was not quick.
“I was tested for Zika virus on October 31 and got to know about infection on November 4. A government official called me up to tell me about the infection,” 21-year-old Arpit Singh, a resident of Pokharpur area, told Gaon Connection.
Sanitation issues in Kanpur
The Air Force corporal pointed out the lack of hygienic conditions in his Pokharpur locality in Kanpur’s Jajmau area. Zika virus is a vector-borne disease and spreads through mosquitoes.
“Heaps of garbage used to be in our locality. Pigs used to roam the area and stagnant water pools were found at several places. But, after Zika, sanitation workers have cleaned it up,” said Ali.
Kanpur’s chief medical officer (CMO) Nepal Singh told Gaon Connection that after Ali tested positive for the Zika virus infection, the entire area has been cleaned up.
Also Read: No respite from fevers in Firozabad; families incur heavy debts to treat their kin
“We have also been sending health teams to high-risk areas in Kanpur to check for symptomatic cases and identify cases that have had a travel history recently,” Singh said.
“We have also been sending health teams to high-risk areas in Kanpur to check for symptomatic cases and identify cases that have had a travel history recently,” Singh said.
The Kanpur district administration has also launched a door-to-door survey to identify suspected cases and get them tested.
“We have launched door to door surveys led by health teams consisting of ASHAs, ANMs and other field workers. These teams identify pregnant women and look for any symptomatic cases,” the Kanpur District Magistrate said.
So far, one pregnant woman has been found to be infected with Zika virus.
Zika virus: Symptoms, prevention and treatment
The symptoms of Zika virus infection include fever, heaviness in thri headache and rashes all over the body. General precautions against mosquito-borne diseases are to be followed to protect oneself against Zika virus.
The treatment against the infection is symptomatic and platelets count is to be checked frequently.
According to the WHO, upto 80 per cent of the infected persons remain asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms but it can cause serious defects to the developing foetus and pregnant women are at high risk.
“ZIKV (Zika virus) can cause microcephaly, congenital Zika syndrome (CZS) and GBS (Guillain-Barré syndrome),” WHO stated on October 14, 2021.
Microcephaly refers to a condition in which a newborn’s head is significantly smaller than expected, often due to abnormal brain development and Guillain-Barré syndrome is an auto-immune disease in which the immune system attacks the nervous system leading to disability. Congenital Zika syndrome refers to a set of abnormalities in the infant due to the viral infection of the mother during pregnancy.
With inputs from Ajay Mishra in Kannauj
Written and edited by Pratyaksh Srivastava
