Tonga's Zika surveillance unit has recorded 549 Zika cases up to yesterday, Monday February 8, including seven cases that were confirmed by laboratory blood tests, said Chief Medical Officer for Public Health, Dr Reynold 'Ofanoa this afternoon.

A national clean up campaign in collaboration with Tonga Red Cross, HMAF military personnel and others started yesterday to eliminate the breeding sites for the mosquitoes that spread the virus.

So far there are 542 suspected cases and seven confirmed cases of Zika. Of the seven cases, two were confirmed in Tonga and five cases were reported from New Zealand in people who had travelled to Tonga and became sick when they returned to New Zealand where they tested positive for Zika.

“None of these seven confirmed cases are pregnant women,” he said, but these seven were mostly female.

“However, ...this week we have identified there are three pregnant women whom we suspect to have Zika virus, this is from the signs and symptoms they presented with."

The blood tests of these pregnant women will be sent to Tahiti and  they expect it will take approximately two-weeks before they get results.

He said Tonga's first confirmed Zika case was in January this year. "We started to see a rise in cases with acute fever and rash during the first week of January. We then saw an increase in the number of cases until now. We declared the Zika epidemic on February 1, 2016.

Tongatapu

Dr 'Ofanoa said most cases were on Tongatapu. "We do see cases in Vava‘u, Ha‘apai and ‘Eua but probably not to the extent as we have here in Tongatapu."

Public Health officials are responding to the outbreak with spraying in targeted places throughout Tongatapu. "With our initial statistics we saw it concentrated in the town area and we have cases from the eastern side."

He said they had identified gaps in their response to control the outbreak, which included insufficient transport to allow them to reach the communities.

"Secondly, human resources, for instance the spraying we did not have sufficient workers to do that for us. We needed to get private operators to assist us in doing the vector control. Thirdly, we needed assistance with our supplies...that includes insecticides...and also the proper machines."

He said if they had access to treated mosquito nets and repellents that would help them to strengthen the capacity of people.

Management

The Public Health department is starting to run community awareness programs on television and radio, and developing pamphlets, and posters.

"For pregnant mothers if they suspect they have the symptoms it’s important for them to seek medical care so they can be assisted...and we refer them to the obstetric team to follow them up during their pregnancy," Dr 'Ofanoa said.