HAVANA – Cuba’s Health Ministry has reported the first
case of Zika contracted in the country, in a 21-year-old woman living in the central
Havana capital and who had not been overseas.

Cuba’s four previous cases of Zika all involved people
who had contracted the virus while abroad.

Cuba reported its first case of Zika on March 2, making
it one of the last countries in the Americas to encounter the virus. All four
of the previous cases occurred in people who contracted Zika in Venezuela.

The Cuban woman first reported symptoms on March 7 and
was hospitalized two days later, the Health Ministry said in a statement read
on state television. The woman was diagnosed on Monday and remains in the
hospital, without symptoms, the statement said.

Zika, which is carried by mosquitoes that transmit the
virus to humans, has been linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil that
is spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean.

The World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak
an international health emergency on February 1, citing a “strongly
suspected” relationship between Zika infection in pregnancy and
microcephaly, a birth defect marked by abnormally small head size that can result
in developmental problems.

However, much remains unknown about Zika, including
whether the virus actually causes microcephaly in babies.

Brazil said it has confirmed more than 740 cases of
microcephaly, and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in
the mothers. Brazil is investigating more than 4,200 additional suspected cases
of microcephaly.

More than a dozen cases of sexual transmission in the
United States and France, and one case of suspected transmission through a
blood transfusion in Brazil, raise questions about other ways that Zika may
spread.

There is no vaccine or treatment.

The Cuban government, which has fumigated neighbourhoods
and homes for decades to contain dengue, another mosquito-borne illness, put
doctors on alert for the virus weeks ago and ramped up mosquito eradication
efforts in neighbourhoods in expectation of Zika’s inevitable arrival.

President Raul Castro, on February 22, ordered 9,000
active-duty officers and reserves plus 200 police officers to join the
prevention effort and asked all Cubans to clean up potential environments for the
Aedes genus of mosquitoes.

– Reuters