The Department of Health is investigating the case of a 46 year old man who has been diagnosed in New Zealand as having Zika, and whom health authorities there say contracted the virus in American Samoa.
DOH Epidemiologist Scott Anesi says an official of the Centers for Disease Control made them aware of the case and they are looking into how long the man was here for, and his travel movements from here to New Zealand.
Anesi said they don’t have the man’s nationality but they do know he transited in Samoa before going to New Zealand.
DOH is trying to trace whether he contracted the disease from here on while he was in transit in Apia.
Yesterday the World Health Organization declared the mosquito-borne virus to be an international public health emergency.
Radio New Zealand reported that one of NZ’s nine Zika cases has been traced to American Samoa.
The nine travelers affected had all recently arrived in New Zealand from Tonga and Samoa with the Ministry of Health linking one of the cases to American Samoa yesterday.
As we reported last week, several suspected cases of Zika have been seen at the LBJ Hospital Emergency Room.
But there has been no confirmed cases.
KHJ News learned over the weekend that no blood specimens of suspected Zika cases have been sent to Honolulu for testing.
Epidemiologist Anesi says he was just made aware of this yesterday.
He says he didn’t know that the LBJ lab had not sent any blood samples to Honolulu.
Anesi says he was told that the reason is because the LBJ hasn’t paid a bill to the Hawaii lab that it uses.
A woman who had been diagnosed with Zika by a doctor at the LBJ ER two weeks ago expressed concern that there was not enough public awareness on the possible links between Zika and birth abnormalities for babies of pregnant women who contracted Zika.
Anesi said they are continuing their media campaign and will begin actual vector control this week.
Symptoms of Zika include fever, rash, blood red eyes like pink eye and joint pain.
Anesi says Zika is more mild than the other mosquito borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya.
He said the Centers for Disease Control has not confirmed the link between Zika and babies born with abnormally small heads but their public awareness message about Zika does mention that in rare cases, Zika has been linked to birth abnormalities.
New Zealand is now advising pregnant women or women planning to become pregnant to consider delaying travel to areas with the Zika virus.
Another important thing to know about Zika is that only 20 % of cases show symptoms while the rest will have the virus but don’t show any of the symptoms.
Anesi suspects that with the Zika case in NZ traced to American Samoa, the territory will now go on the travel advisory or watch list of countries to be avoided due to the presence of Zika.
