The year’s first case in Taipei of an imported Zika infection was noted on September 16, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced on Tuesday.
Before Tuesday’s announcement, four imported Zika cases had been reported this year elsewhere on the island – two from Vietnam, one from the Philippines and one from Angola.
On Saturday, a 27-year-old Indian man based in Manila arrived with three friends at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where he was flagged with fever by the quarantine officer, Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News reported on Wednesday.
Two days later, on Monday, laboratory results confirmed that the Indian national was infected with the Zika virus. As calculated from the virus’ normal incubation period, he was mostly likely to have contracted the infection in the Philippines.
The patient was reportedly in stable condition, and his companions have not developed any symptoms of the mosquito-borne disease.
The Taipei city government has initiated sanitization efforts and elimination of mosquito-breeding sources in Zhongzheng district and other places where the patient visited.
The CDC has now scaled up the travel notice for the Philippines to Level 2, which is an alert for the Zika virus.