Ten cases of Zika virus confirmed in Kanpur

The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday said 10 cases of Zika virus have been confirmed in Kanpur as it stepped up surveillance to check its spread, officials said.

Since the confirmation of the state's first case of Zika virus in October, the Uttar Pradesh government is carrying out testing of samples on a large scale, an official statement said.

So far, a total of 645 samples have been sent to the King George's Medical University (KGMU), it said, adding that out of these 253 samples have been collected from people with symptoms of fever and 103 samples are of pregnant women.

A total of 10 patients have tested positive so far in the Kanpur district of the state, it said.

Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that spreads through bites of infected mosquitoes.

With cases of Zika being reported in the state, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said on Sunday that the health department must ensure strict surveillance to check the spread of the virus and undertake frequent and extensive door-to-door sanitisation and fogging drives to check mosquito breeding.

People should be made aware of preventive measures and encouraged to maintain cleanliness, he had said.

The State Health Department has been carrying out an extensive exercise of mass-scale sanitisation, state-wide surveillance drives, spraying of anti-larva chemicals, fogging and cleanliness drives, it said.

Health workers have been paying door-to-door visits to identify patients with viral fever, vector-borne diseases and with other symptoms.

Under the drive, so far over 39,897 households have been visited and more than 1,61,535 people have been made aware of preventive measures.