The insect carrying the Zika virus remains very rare in Egypt, according to Amr Qandil, head of Health Ministry’s preventive medicine sector, who added that the ministry will take all precautionary measures to avoid the spread of the disease.
Egypt and east Mediterranean countries are free of the virus, he added, commenting on a disease that has spread rapidly through South America, namely Brazil, and threatens to spread further.
The sector, according to Qandil, gets samples of insects in Egypt to identify and classify their types. If a huge number of any kind is found, it’s combated through spreading poison on the places where its larvae and adult insects are found.
Qandil stressed the necessity of quarantines at airports to check cases coming from countries where the virus is found in order to detain and examine anyone suspected of carrying the virus at the hospital
The World Health Organization’s emergency committee will convene on Monday in Geneva to check developments of the virus as well as examine precautionary measures and steps that could be taken to prevent its transmission.
The tiny, white-speckled Aedes aegypti mosquito thrives in tropical and sub-tropical climates. The species are originally from Africa. According to researchers at the University of Florida, the insect lost ground to the West Nile virus-carrying Asian Tiger mosquito.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
