The Public Health Minister of the Catalan Government, Joan Guix, confirmed on Thursday the first case of microcephaly in Spain in a foetus whose mother was infected with the Zika virus. According to what Guix said to 8TV, the woman travelled to parts of South America some months ago and was infected with the Zika virus and dengue. According to the department of Public Health, the foetus has “several malformations.” This case of microcephaly is the first one registered in Spain and the second in Europe.
11 may 2016
The minister of Public Health has not given any more details on the state of the mother or the foetus. “We think the mother isn’t in any danger”, he indicated. In Catalonia, the Department of Health has detected around 40 affected people and all of them had travelled to parts of South America where the transmission of the virus is active. Four of the infected people in the community were pregnant women. According to Public Health of the Catalonian Government, the foetuses of the other women “are progressing well”. Nevertheless, the women “are still under strict periodic controls to check the evolution of the foetuses.”
The Department of Public Health has reminded that none of the Zika cases detected is native, but he has asked for women to be extremely cautious if they are going to travel to areas where the virus is present. Guix has appealed for calm and has also reminded that the possibility of the foetus of a woman infected with Zika to get the disease is “one in 30,000.” “There is a case of a woman that has been infected with Zika months ago has recently given birth and both she and the baby are perfectly and have no medical complications”, has revealed the Department of Health.
Since the World Health Organisation (WHO) proclaimed the epidemiological alert due to the relation of microcephaly in the foetuses with Zika virus, it has been registered 1.198 microcephaly cases associated to the Zika virus in Brazil, three in Cape Verde, seven in Colombia, eight in the French Polynesia, three in Martinique, four in Panama, one in Slovenia and two in United States.
In Spain, the last data of the Ministry of Health, corresponding to 3 May indicate that it has been diagnosed, at the time, 105 cases of persons infected with the Zika virus, all of them infected by the bite of the Aedes mosquito in South America. 13 of them are pregnant women. Catalonia is the community with most infected people registered (33).
