This update report on Zika virus outbreak in Tonga covered Epi- week 10 which is up to the 6th March 2016. It is encouraging to see that the curve of the graph as in Figure 1 continues to follow a downward-slope.
1a: Current Surveillance Update
In this report, the curve indicates that the incidence of Zika virus infection continues to decline.
As shown by Figure 1 and Table 1, that by Epi-week 7, there was a sign of slowing down of the cases reported, and definitely by week 9 there is a clear down sloping in the number of cases reported even up to now, Epi-week 10.
Comment:
AFR= Acute fever and rash syndrome
The reports were from 11 sentinel sites including Vaiola hospital (Outpatients Department & Antenatal Clinic) , Vava’u hospital, Ha’apai hospital, ‘Eua hospital and 7 Health Centres of Tongatapu. This increase of sentinel sites started from Epi-week 8.
Some of the surveillance data reports from the Health Centres and the outer islands were delayed prior to Epi-week 9, and they are entered here according to the dates it was collected as per Epi week.
There were no pregnant women reported as suspected Zika in Epi-week 10. To date, there have been 19 cases of suspected Zika infection in pregnant women, with no reported complications.