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Today, we spoke with the Doctor in charge of the Zika watch in Belize City and the surrounding communities. He told us what his office is doing to contain possible outbreaks:

Dr. Javier Zuniga - Manager. Central Health Region
"Zika which is an emerging infectious disease has been affecting most of South America and now Central America and the Caribbean. We were basically awaiting a positive case for Zika because of course all the other countries are affected and we had already put in place some measures to be able to increase our surveillance and also to protect the population specifically from the vector which is the mosquito, Aedes aegypti. So now basically now that we have confirm that we have Zika, now we need to strengthen those surveillance and vector control activities. We put the national epidemiological unit through the Ministry of Health, summons a team and put the plan in place. it's called the Zika Preparedness and Response Plan for Belize. This plan was shared with all the health regions within the country. It has 3 phases to it. The 1st phase is for preparedness, 2nd phase is the positive case or an outbreak, we now have confirmed that we have a positive case and then lastly we have the recuperating phase. All regions were in that preparedness phase which as I said we basically want monitoring to see if we had a positive case or a case that we suspected. Unfortunately, we cannot do the test in the country. We had to send those samples to CARPHA. The 2nd part of the plan is laboratory diagnosis which is also done in CARPHA. Lastly, vector control activities and health education within the health facilities and the community on a whole. So that is the plan as such. Now, we move into the 2nd phase which is now that we have detected a positive case, we strengthen these different processes."

Zika Symptoms include mild headaches, a rash, fever, malaise, conjunctivitis, and joint pains. Anyone experiencing these symptoms is asked to seek immediate medical attention.

But, for the Ministry of Health, the focus is on controlling mosquito populations, since Zika is commonly transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Women who are pregnant or considering becoming pregnant are most at risk. That's because, the disease causes micro-cephaly, a birth defect where newborns have abnormally small heads and under-developed brains.

The Central Health Region's Manager had special message to women who are pregnant or may become pregnant:

Javiel Alpuche, Sr. Public Health Insp., Central Health Region
"There are 2 things we would recommend to the public. One, I would avoid being bitten by the mosquitos. How do you do that? You do that by using repellent if you're out doors, using long sleeve shirt/blouse/pants, sleeping under a bed net. Also by eliminating breeding sites which would be within the yards. We have artificial and natural containers that service breeding sites. Currently we are in the middle of the dry season. You'll find out that the breeding sites for mosquitos would be large containers. If you have an old refrigerator, stove and other such big items, vats and drums used for storage of water, these can be breeding sites. But as soon as rain start, any container that holds water is a potential breeding site. So we can start off by cleaning the yards, getting rid of all containers that are potential breeding sites and go a step further to clean even the drains in front of your yards. Then in terms of the Vector control program, we are indeed enhancing our vector control activities which involve the premises and yard inspections, the health education, thermal spraying as well within the city and the UVL spraying with the truck that goes around."

Dr. Javier Zuniga, Manager - Central Health Region
"Our main concern is women of reproductive age. Any female within the reproductive age who is planning to get pregnant or is pregnant, please seek medical attention or pre-natal care immediately. Also if you're planning to get pregnant, to get counselling before you get pregnant. We cannot stop anyone from getting pregnant, but we would like to capture patients early so that we can monitor them throughout their pregnancy. This is not only for Zika but for any other complications that may arise during pregnancy. But since the problem with Zika now we would like to capture all pregnancies as soon as possible to monitor fetus and mother together."

Now, back to the health aspect. What you need to know is that Zika Symptoms include mild headaches, a rash, fever, malaise, conjunctivitis, and joint pains. Anyone experiencing these symptoms is asked to seek immediate medical attention.

The Central Health Region says that they have conducted several clean-up campaigns.