A 34-year-old male from Jiangxi province has been infected with the now-internationally feared Zika virus, the first confirmed case of the disease in China, according to CCTV.
The patient had recently traveled to Venezuela and returned to his hometown of Ganxian county on February 5. Upon arriving home the man was suffering from a fever, headache and dizziness – symptoms he had been displaying since January 28, according to the report.
The unnamed Jiangxi male was taken to a local hospital and placed under quarantine.
According to the CCTV story, doctors have reported the patient is recuperating with a dwindling rash and normal body temperature.
The Zika virus, for those unfamiliar with the disease, is a mosquito-spread virus related to dengue, West-Nile and Japanese encephalitis, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The disease is considered to have relatively mild effects on humans, but has been linked to serious birth defects, most recently to thousands of newborns in Brazil.
China’s first reported case comes just over a week after the World Health Organization declared the virus a global public health emergency.
China’s national health body has stated that public health professionals believe the risk of the virus spreading is extremely low – due to cold winter temperatures, according to the CCTV report.
[Image via The Malaysian Insider]
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