by Peerzada Arshad Hamid
NEW DELHI, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said Friday only three cases of Zika virus were detected during an ongoing surveillance in the country.
"The ongoing country-wide Zika laboratory-based surveillance in India has so far tested 36,613 human samples and 16,571 mosquito samples for the presence of Zika virus," a senior ministry official said. "No other sample has been tested positive apart from the three laboratory-confirmed cases reported from Ahmedabad (Gujarat)."
The health officials said no further samples taken during antenatal screening and acute febrile illness surveillance have tested positive for Zika virus disease.
Last week, the World Health Organization said in a statement that India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on May 15 reported three laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika virus.
The ministry officials conveyed to the WHO that Zika virus disease was noticed in Bapunagar area of Ahmedabad district in India's western state of Gujarat. The disease was detected during a routine surveillance after cases of vector borne disease (VBD), mainly Dengue and Chikungunya were noticed in post monsoon period last year.
The samples according to officials were collected during January and February this year.
"The state government had accordingly planned fever surveillance, vector surveillance and intense vector control activity," the officials said. "One of the blood samples collected during laboratory surveillance during this period from Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation limits tested positive for Zika virus."
According to officials, the sample belonged to 34-year-old female patient admitted at hospital with complaints of fever following delivery of a healthy baby was retested at National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune and was further confirmed through positive RT-PCR test and virus sequencing at NIV on Jan. 3, 2017.
The patient according to officials had no travel history to any Zika affected country.
Following the detection, the officials reinforced the surveillance and collected thousands of blood samples for thorough investigation.
"This surveillance in total yielded two more cases of laboratory-confirmed Zika virus disease," a statement issued by health ministry said. "The other two cases include a 22-year-old pregnant woman in her 37th week of pregnancy and a 64-year-old man with eight days history of fever."
Indian health ministry officials however notified the Zika virus cases to WHO last month. The delay in reporting the cases is seen with suspicion with specialists questioning the way government tried to hide the information.
"Government should have announced the detection of cases for it would help public to take extra precautions against mosquito bites," said a health specialist. "The way government tried to keep the information away from people sounds unusual."
However, health ministry officials say with Zika virus disease ceases to be a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the case was handled as per "protocol".
"After due process of investigation and verification of the Zika virus disease cases, WHO was notified of all the three Zika virus disease cases on May 15, 2017," a ministry spokesperson said. "Since WHO had already withdrawn the notification of Zika virus disease as a PHEIC the case was handled as per our existing protocol."
In November, the WHO declared that Zika disease infection no longer constituted PHEIC.
Following the detection of Zika virus cases in India, health ministry officials said India continues to maintain high vigilance and surveillance on the issue.
The ministry officials said national guidelines and action plan (with scenario based approach) on Zika virus disease have been prepared and shared with the states to prevent outbreak of Zika virus disease and containment of spread in case of any outbreak.
