Potential new cluster

The local authorities will be continuing mosquito-control operations such as fogging in the Zika clusters. As of Friday, 194 breeding spots had been destroyed in these places.
The local authorities will be continuing mosquito-control operations such as fogging in the Zika clusters. As of Friday, 194 breeding spots had been destroyed in these places. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG

A new potential Zika cluster has been found in the Jalan Raya/Circuit Road area, where two people have come down with the mosquito-borne virus, said the Health Ministry (MOH) yesterday.

One was a new case from yesterday, while another had been picked up earlier.

As of noon, said MOH in a joint statement with the National Environment Agency (NEA), 14 new cases of Zika had been detected here.

This brings the total to 318 since the first locally-transmitted case was found last month.

Seven of the new cases are linked to the large cluster in Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive/Kallang Way/Paya Lebar Way, while another is linked to the Bishan Street 12 cluster.

Yet another case is linked to the cluster in Bedok North Avenue 3, while the last four have no known links to any existing cluster.

The authorities said that mosquito-control operations would continue in the six previously identified Zika clusters. Mosquito-control operations will also start at the newest cluster in Jalan Raya/Circuit Road.

As of Friday, 194 mosquito breeding spots had been found and destroyed in the clusters. Six in 10 of these were in homes, while the rest were from other places such as common areas.

Yesterday, Taiwan confirmed its seventh Zika case - a 20-year-old woman from Singapore who lived in Aljunied, according to a statement from Taiwan's Centres for Disease Control.

She had apparently travelled to Japan on Aug 26 and started developing symptoms on Sept 1.

These persisted when she went to Taiwan on Sep 3, and she tested positive two days later.

Linette Lai

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on September 11, 2016, with the headline Potential new cluster. Subscribe