Govt teams in Siwan to look for Zika patient

PATNA: A Bihar government team has collected samples from Hariharpur village in Siwan to check the transmission of Zika virus in Bihar.
The development follows reports of a 22-year-old Hariharpur native, Sanjay Chourasia, testing positive for Zika in Jaipur last week.
The three-member disease outbreak review team collected blood samples of 26 people suspected to be infected with dengue or chikungunya or Zika.
The Bihar government sent the team to the Siwan village after 29 people tested positive for Zika in Jaipur on October 9. Chourasia was the first person to test positive for Zika in Jaipur. He visited his native Hariharpur village last month.
Epidemiologist Dr Ragini Mishra said, “We also did a house-to-house survey in the village to prepare a list of the people having fever as well as pregnant women.”
She said the samples collected from the village would be sent to King George’s Medical University in Lucknow for confirmatory test. The test report is expected within five days.
Earlier, the state health department issued an alert in all the 38 districts and directed all the public and private hospitals to inform the department if any suspected case of Zika was reported to them.
A seven-member central government’s team also visited Hariharpur village in Siwan. “We conducted a survey in 44 houses... We have also collected 13 samples which were handed over to the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute in Patna for lab tests,” said Dr Ravi Shankar Singh, Patna-based CMO of the regional office of Union ministry of health and family welfare, who was part of the central team.
He said Zika symptoms were not detected in any member of Chourasia’s family. “But we have sent their samples too for clinical examination. Of our 13 samples, seven are of Chourasia’s family members and six of other villagers who complained of fever,” Dr Singh said.