National Environment Agency (NEA) stated that another 14 cases of locally transmitted of Zika virus infection have been confirmed as of 3 pm on 16 September 2016, which brings the total number of cases up to 369 since 27 August 2016.
4 of these cases were from Aljunied cluster, 1 case from Joo Seng Road cluster, 1 case from Elite Ter cluster. 2 cases were from a new cluster, Sengkang. 6 has no link to the existed clusters.
NEA states that there is one new cluster which is Sengkang Ctrl/ Sengkang East Ave, along with another 7 existed clusters, which are Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive/ Paya Lebar Way/ Kallang Way/ Circuit Road/ Geylang East Central/ Geylang East Avenue 1, Bedok North Avenue 2/ Bedok North Avenue 3/ Bedok North Street 3, Joo Seng Road, Bishan Street 12, Elite Terrace, Ubi Crescent, and Jalan Raya/Circuit Road.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) had announced earlier that the National Public Health Laboratory and A*STAR’s Bioinformatics Institute had completed the sequencing analysis of the Zika virus found in two patients from the Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive cluster.
The analysis found that the virus belongs to the Asian lineage and likely evolved from the strain that was already circulating in Southeast Asia. MOH states that the virus from these two patients was not imported from South America. However, the first case that was reported in May 2016 had been confirmed to be the same as the strains currently found in South America the strains currently found in South America.
Vector control is still being carried out by NEA to control the spread of the infection via mosquitoes.
