National ZIKV clean-up day set for Friday

The Ministry of Education has designated Friday, February 5, as a National Clean-Up Day to facilitate vector control activities in schools in light of the threat of the Zika virus (ZIKV).

Parents and other persons are being urged by the ministry to participate in the school clean-up through Parent-Teacher Associations and community groups in order to make it effective.

Activities will also include the sensitisation of parents and members of the community on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the ZIKV.

This includes removing or cleaning up possible breeding sites once per week, and ensuring stored water is properly covered.

GLOBALEMERGENCY

The World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts that three to four million people could be infected with the Zika virus in the Americas this year.

WHO has since declared ZIKV a global emergency. The last time an international emergency was declared was for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,000 people.

The Ministry of Health recently advised women to avoid getting pregnant for at least the next six months to a year because of possibility that babies could be affected by microcephaly, a rare birth defect causing an unusually small head and incomplete brain development.