A woman who was diagnosed at the LBJ Emergency Room last week with the Zika virus doesn’t believe there’s enough awareness about the disease especially for pregnant women.
The woman who did not wish to be named said she developed a rash all over her body and thought she was allergic to something
She went to the ER on Wednesday and was prescribed Benadryl.
The next day the rash got worse and she ran a fever and felt tired. She was diagnosed by Doctor Kolone Afoa as having the Zika virus.
She said staff at the ER said they had seen quite a few cases of the same symptoms she had at the hospital.
He woman was told to take Tylenol and rest.
She regained her strength and got well after five days.
She said apart form the rash all over her body, her eyes burned red, almost like pink eye disease, she experience headaches and a general body ache, but not the joint pains like dengue or chigungunya.
The woman said she read up on the Zika virus and was disturbed about the possible effects on pregnant women and their babies.
The Health Department issued a statement last week saying that there were no confirmed cases of Zika in the territory but they were monitoring possible presence of the virus which is spread by mosquitoes as there were cases in neighboring islands.
The DOH statement said that in rare cases zika is linked to birth abnormalities.
The woman said from what she learned from her visit to the hospital last week, there are a lot more cases of Zika than health authorities are telling the public and she feels that there should be a greater push to alert pregnant mothers about the disease.
The principal of a private school said one parent emailed that her children are staying home because they have Zika.
The principal said there hasn’t been any visits from public health like during the dengue epidemic.
The principal said until she received the email from the parents with sick children she wasn’t aware of this new disease Zika.
