Cuba reports first case of Zika contracted in the country

Cuba’s Health Ministry on Tuesday (March 15) reported the first case of Zika contracted in the country, in a 21-year-old woman living in central Havana and who had not been overseas.

Cuba’s four previous cases of Zika all involved people who had contracted the virus while abroad.

“The first case of the Zika virus transmitted in the country has been diagnosed. The patient is a 21-year-old woman who is a resident of central Havana, Havana province. She has no background of having been outside the country,” said a presenter who read a report from the Cuba’s health ministry on state television.

The Cuban woman first reported symptoms on March 7 and was hospitalized two days later, the Health Ministry said in the statement.

The woman was diagnosed on Monday and remains in the hospital, without symptoms, the statement said.

Cuba reported its first case of Zika on March 2, making it one of the last countries in the Americas to encounter the virus.

All four of the previous cases occurred in people who contracted Zika in Venezuela.

Zika has been linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil and the illness is spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean.

The World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak an international health emergency on February 1, citing a “strongly suspected” relationship between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly, a birth defect marked by abnormally small head size that can result in developmental problems.

However, much remains unknown about Zika, including whether the virus actually causes microcephaly in babies.

Brazil said it has confirmed more than 740 cases of microcephaly, and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating more than 4,200 additional suspected cases of microcephaly.

More than a dozen cases of sexual transmission in the United States and France, and one case of suspected transmission through a blood transfusion in Brazil, raise questions about other ways that Zika may spread.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika.

The Cuban government, which has fumigated neighbourhoods and homes for decades to contain dengue, another mosquito-borne illness, put doctors on alert for the virus weeks ago and ramped up mosquito eradication efforts in neighbourhoods in expectation of Zika’s inevitable arrival.

President Raul Castro on February 22 ordered 9,000 active-duty officers and reserves plus 200 police officers to join the prevention effort and asked all Cubans to clean up potential environments for the Aedes genus of mosquitoes.