Infectious diseases experts have said that Nigeria is among the eight countries that may record a Zika virus outbreak in the next few months.
The other vulnerable countries indentified in the study published in Lancet Series include India, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
According to their researchers, about 2.6 billion people living in different parts of Asia and Africa are at risk of the infection, based on a new analysis of travel, climate and mosquito patterns in the regions.
They examined patterns of people travelling from infected regions in the Americas to Africa and Asia and combined that with an assessment of local conditions including mosquito populations.
The scientists, however, cautioned that the study could overestimate the number of people at risk since they had yet to confirm whether people were already infected in some of these countries in the past, a situation that could make such individuals immune to the infection.
Infectious diseases physician and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and the study’s senior author, Dr. Kamran Khan, said the results of the study was to help health authorities in vulnerable countries plan ahead to possibly avoid some of the worst effects of Zika.
Hopefully our government will take note of this.
I hope the change government is more proactive than clueless GEJ in terms of health matter.