Govt’s winning zika battle earns praise

Government’s role in fighting the zika virus after an outbreak in 2016 was commended on Friday in a meeting of experts in Nadi.

The Minister for Health and Medical Services, Rosy Akbar, told the meeting that in 2016, Fiji recorded 45 cases of positive zika. A year later, only one case was reported.

Ms Akbar was addressing the Fiji Zika Prevalence and Climate Change Study Project 2018-2019 at Tokatoka Resort, in Nadi.

University of Fiji Vice-Chancellor Professor Prem Misir said the sharp decline showed that Government was doing a great job in fighting this dis­ease.

“The decrease in statistics from Fiji between 2016 to last year shows the Government has done a marvelous job. This shows that we are moving into the right direction,” Professor Misir said.

Zika is an ailment caused by a virus transmitted primarily by Aedes mos­quitoes.

People with the zika virus will show symptoms including mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain.

The project is aimed to design and promote knowledge among the local and national government with com­bined efforts of the University of Fiji and the Health Ministry.

“Zika, dengue fever, leptospirosis aren’t new disease. They are like any other communicable diseases but sometimes when we work with the grass root level we find that they don’t take these things seriously,” the min­ister said.

Creating awareness was different from changing the mindset of people which is currently one of the biggest challenges they face in terms on com­municable diseases, she said.

Ms Akbar said the ministry had to teach communities and villagers sim­ple hygiene practices, like washing their hands to prevent them from get­ting typhoid.

“We can talk about these mosquitoes until the cows come home. We can talk about all these simple things we are doing but the question is how do we take it down to our people and make them understand these simple things,” the minister said.

“The fight against this virus associ­ated with climate change is far from over. Unfortunately I’ve been told there is no vaccine for treatment for zika, so that poses another challenge for us but at the moment tackling the root transmission is very important.’’

Edited by Goerge Kulamaiwasa

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