Earlier local Zika transmission confirmed in 2nd case
Aedes aegypti mosquito
(CNS): A second locally acquired case of Zika virus has been confirmed by public health officials in another George Town patient that had previously been counted as an imported case. Following the news from the Public Health Department that the first case of locally transmitted Zika was reported in a male patient in George Town on 25 July, Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr Samuel Williams-Rodriguez said that further investigations have revealed that an earlier case reported to the hospital on 12 July was also a local not an overseas transmission.
This female patient also lives in George Town, as does the male patient in the case reported Monday, but her symptoms reportedly began on 10 July, more than two weeks before what was previously believed to be Cayman’s first local acquisition.
The woman visited a private medical office on 12 July and was referred to Cayman Islands Hospital, where a sample was taken and sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) for testing.
It has now been confirmed that she had no previous travel history to any of the countries experiencing an outbreak of Zika, suggesting she was infected by a local Aedes aegypti mosquito. This means that, as of Tuesday 9 August, the Cayman Islands has reported eight confirmed Zika virus cases, with six imported and two locally acquired.
For more advice on mosquito control, contact MRCU on 949-2557 in Grand Cayman, or 948-2223 on Cayman Brac; and DEH on 949-6696 in Grand Cayman, or 948-2321 in Cayman Brac.
Category: Health, Medical Health
I can’t believe that the government hasn’t issued recommendations and policies yet, especially for pregnant women and their partner and families …
CNS: The rest of this comment is posted as a featured comment here.
It’s very simple we will have more cases over the next few months, as this team keep releasing the generic mosquitos on Cayman.
Why you may ask? Simple as long as Oxitec is releasing mosquitos there will be no spraying or plane releasing tablets as it will kill the genetic mosquitos. So no spraying, releasing of some genetic fly = more mosquitos on island therefore more chance of these diseases to spread.
They were spraying last night. Why do you have to make up stories?
Am glad to hear that there was spraying last night. As an employee of the airport that has to report to work early mornings and sometime work into late night I can assure you this is no made up story. The mosquitoes is very bad, getting to and from my car is no walk I the park . the mosquitos is so thick in the mornings and evenings it is almost unbearable, they actually invade the buildings. And if you have doubts about this I invite you to come there this afternoon around 5:30 – 7:00 pm and tomorrow morning around the same time and you will have your own proof
MRCU please visit and revisit the GC airport, having visited there just this weekend, I made sure I was going to be ‘eating alive’. This was late afternoon but the comments I heard then, was if I think it was bad then do not try coming there early mornings or dust bight as that situation was described by a elderly taxi driver “early mornings and dust bight these times reminds me of the 50’s and early 60’s, never seen so many misquitoes in a long time, I swear they must have turn loose those millions of imported misquitoes right here around the airport, but these are the blighting kind”.
It is bad, please MRCU for the safety of our local working and visiting people to the airport, in no way excluding our visiting or departing tourist I am appealing to you please give this area some most urgent serious attention .
You all missing the point. What difference does it make on timing. Water under the bridge. The issue is that Zika locally is in George town the hub of Cayman. They should have quarantined those patients on that basis alone. Now everyone is susceptible and yes you will get many, many more cases. Spraying their home doesn’t make any difference. They could get bitten at the beach at a restaurant or walking around the shops. Get a grip people you have a bigger problem than whens and hows. You have Zika now and that impacts tourists. What about expats will they leave on this basis, mostly young married couples and families. I would never risk staying.
The notion that doctors should explore the possibility of sexual transmission is interesting — and I hope they are having those conversations with patients — but with all these Zika cases around — eight confirmed with others pending — I think it is sensible to assume that the virus is now circulating in our mosquito pool.
Seems like there are some rapid results zika tests being developed ,hopefully they will soon be available here. Some of these have been developed in 2 Texas area Hospitals but are restricted to patients of those hospitals and are not FDA approved. See the following links:https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2016/acs-presspac-june-29-2016/portable-test-rapidly-detects-zika-in-saliva-for-2.html, time.com/4233839/texas-rapid-test-zika/ Should these become avaialble to Public Health Dept here it would mean that within hours of a positive test result MRCU and Public Health Dept could be deployed to the patient’s residence .
Has anyone seen the state of the diving and swimming pools in Rio?!? I’m pretty sure I’ve just identified zika ground zero.
Sooooo, the “first local zika case” is actually, really the “second local zika case” and the second case is really the first locally transmitted case?
How could the case tested in the second week of July only now be confirmed as locally transmitted when the case tested around the 25 July was reported as the first case???
Some mess somewhere…
2 cases of Zika? How many people in the Cayman Islands got cancer from the Dump? These 2 people will go about their lives in few days, meantime lives are ruined, finances are drained by cancer, yet, absolutely no response from the Government.
10:35 am: 10/08 — you obviously don’t understand the devastating consequences of preventable zika infections. The Govt is right to make every effort to stop the spread. I hope you are doing your part.
7.43pm
There are no devastating consequences, unless you are a pregnant woman. Even then the connection is controversial.
You get more devastating consequences from a jelly fish sting yet you are not trying to eradicate it.
11:24 am at 11:08– how uninformed can you be — the association between the Zika virus and microcephaly is not “controversial” as you put it. This has been irrefrutably confirmed by medical authorities.
And to compare the Zika virus to a jelly fish sting– what a simpleton!
11/08 @ 11:24 am: The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday issued a travel alert for the Cayman Islands. So much for your “jelly fish sting”. Read and be informed:
http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-CDC-issues-zika-travel-alert-for-the-Cayman-Islands-31390.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CaribbeanNewsNowDailyHeadlines+%28Caribbean+News+Now%21+Daily+Headlines%29
They identified the exact location in Miami where the Zika outbreak occurred, why not tell the Cayman public where the local outbreak is in George Town, so people can lessen their presence in this area ?
At this point we might as well all embrace zika. It’s going to spread like the plague.
Are you all there, 9:05 — 10/08?
This wouldn’t happen with gay mosquitoes.
Break out Ozzie’s Ebola tent!
I hope it was moth balled.
Stop reporting false information to the public. Concerning how the results of the 12 th July has only been confirmed now, as being infected locally. Factual reports are expected.
The current testing takes close to a month to get a result, so correct reporting.
Just because the date doesn’t fit to your agenda does not mean it is false.
Zika infection was never at issue – this has to do with why it was falsely attributed as an imported case. Either the hospital asked about travel history or they didn’t. If they had presence enough to test for Zika but made no enquiry as to travel history (seems unlikely), then we would need to ask why this key info was either not asked or asked and facts subsequently suppressed from public. This seems to be an issue of significantly degraded frontline capacity while Premier is deflecting to anti-GM mosquito narrative. Hopefully the MRCU sprayed the crap out of their yard anyway and the public was never in danger. But the public should enquire as to what actually happened here, don’t you think?
I realize that there is a healthy skepticism of government, but let us also look realistically at the situation —
1. blood tests must be done overseas; that takes time; diagnoses are not based on travel history.
2. authorities have now reported it — what has the tourism market gained by what could only be a minor delay? It is not as if we have had to get a time-consuming national enquiry to get this information.
3. reading between the lines, and I am just surmising, it sounded to me as if there was some confusion in lumping this result with the imported cases. At the most this amounts to lack of careful attention. Again, reading between the lines, it seems that when it was discovered, it was immediately reported.
The potential degradation in response time from MRCU of one month in blitzing this area of GT, and subsequent lapse in health diagnosis from this neighborhood equals the public risk of this issue. This is how urban outbreaks start and why they are so hard to stop. Just ask Jamaica, or Colombia, or Brazil…we had months to prepare our health providers for what was coming and we seemed to have dropped the ball.
This oversight or something like that does not bother me very much.
What bothers me is the fact that people are traveling to Zika-infected areas and may not be taking proper precautions and are bringing the virus back. Having said that, it was never “if” the virus would arrive — it was always a matter of “when.”
It is here now — as a population, let us respond responsibly — please do what Public Health has been begging us to do all along:
1. Keep an eye on our environment for breeding sites; and
2. Take precautions against being bitten at home and when travelling to countries with known Zika outbreaks:
– use insect repellent
– wear protective clothing
– stay indoors during mosquito peak hours
– men should abstain or use protection during sexual intercourse if there is any chance at all they or their partners could be infected — and remember that symptoms take around two weeks to show up.
3. Pregnant women or those who are intending to become pregnant should be EXTREMELY CAREFUL!!
Proper precautions? Are you mad? Even here you can spray yourself with every repellent going and the buggers will still bite you…have you been outside lately?
And when might that be ? Soon come ??
Er … It is a matter of sending a blood sample off to Trinidad and waiting for testing to be completed and results communicated back. Doctors can suspect Zika but the diagnosis has to be confirmed through laboratory testing of blood samples.
Health practitioners worldwide have had months to get up to speed on Zika – the number one question in dealing with zika/dengue/yellow fever/chikungunya/encephalitis-like patient complaints in non-endemic countries is “have you travelled recently”. So, either the Hospital didn’t ask, or [they] looked the other way on their report. Either way – we should pursue the answer to that question.
9.25am You left out one very important possibility, that is that the patient was not totally truthful in the first instance.Of course you overlooked that in your rush to blame the HSA staff.
9:25 am 10/08 — you also overlooked something else — Many conditions share similar symptoms — that is why your doctor does lab tests where they are applicable. No doctor anywhere is the works is going to diagnose solely on symptoms presented by the patient, particularly when there is a test that will give a reliable result one way or the other.
Muahahahahahahaha
Anon Why do you assume that there was a cover-up? Do we always have to be so negative? A better approach would be to when was it discovered to be a locally acquired case.If the answer is that it was known for some time , then would be the appropriate time to inquire about a possible cover-up.
Why was this local case covered up for almost a month?? The first questions they would have asked were where have you travelled?!
Nothing was covered up. It’s not an instant diagnosis. It’s not that simple.
What motivation would the health department have to cover something up?
Tourism !
So they can keep their jobs and comfortable salaries??
…they didn’t want to scare the tourists.
Do we know that these two cases were NOT sexually transmitted? This is a very important factor for tourism.
Public Health authorities have their job to do — and that is not about tourists. Credit them with a little professionalism, please.
True – but to ignore the tourism impact in our society is the height of arrogance. They should at least be confirming whether it was transmitted by mosquito or sexually.
Would knowing the area or areas in George Town be helpful to people?
It takes close to a month to get a result, as samples have to be flown overseas and there is a lot of demand.
I got a lika boat , so sat down to pika nose ,then got on my bika , to go see my chica , shes from Puerto rica .