India Acknowledges Three Cases of Zika Virus<br />In addition, 18,000 mosquitoes have been tested, including 500 from the Bapunagar area in Ahmedabad, where two of the Zika cases were reported, Doctor Swaminathan said; those, too, were negative,<br />and officials had not detected any upsurge in microcephaly cases.<br />By NIDA NAJARJUNE 3, 2017<br />NEW DELHI — Officials in Ahmedabad, India, saw the first of the cases in November: A 34-year-old woman who had just given birth to a healthy child came down with a fever, and tests later confirmed<br />that she was infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus.<br />Doctor Swaminathan said that across the country, some 40,000 samples have been tested for Zika since July of last year,<br />and aside from the three reported cases in Ahmedabad, none had come up positive.<br />"That would have given an opportunity for press attention, and<br />that could have been used for a positive response to control measures." The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation started a major drive against mosquitoes in four areas of the city at the request of the Gujarat state government, according to Bhavin Joshi, a city health official.<br />"So then there was a decision that there was probably no need for a public announcement at<br />that time." The Zika virus attracted global attention in late 2015 when a surge in the number of babies born with microcephaly — abnormally small heads and brain damage — was seen in northeastern Brazil several months after an epidemic of the mosquito-borne disease in the region.<br />Indian Council said that The rationale at that time was, if you announce Zika, there might be a bit of panic,<br />Dr. G. Arunkumar, the head of the Manipal Center of Virus Research at Manipal University, the site of one of the 30 government laboratories<br />that can test for Zika, said he learned of all three of them only after the W.H.O.
