A TEAM composed of an epidemiologist, entomologist, and doctor dispatched from the Department of Health (DOH) national office arrived Tuesday, September 6, to further assess the sixth Zika virus victim in the country.
The victim is a resident of Barangay Benedicto, Jaro district, Iloilo City.
The DOH team, under the office of Undersecretary Eric Tayag, is headed by Doctor Vicky de los Reyes from the epidemiology bureau who went to the village to interview the whole family and see the breeding places of aedes aegypti virus-carrying mosquitoes.
The team interviewed the 12 persons living in the same house with the confirmed Zika victim who is reportedly recovering from the disease.
It was established that the family’s driver had skin rashes, fever, and conjunctivitis but already recovered from the ailment thought to be an ordinary influenza.
The 45-year-old married woman was confined at the hospital but returned home immediately after doctors diagnosed her with possible Zika and chikungunya virus for having skin rashes and red eyes brought by vector-borne mosquito bites.
City Health Officer Doctor Bernard Caspe said the disease is not life threatening like the current dengue fever that already claimed three deaths in Iloilo City.