Macau has recorded this year’s eighth imported case of chikungunya fever, the Health Bureau (SSM) has announced.
The case, which was confirmed on Friday night, was announced in a statement on Saturday.
According to the statement, the patient is a nine-year-old local boy who attends school and lives in the neighbouring city of Zhuhai.
The boy visited Guangzhou’s Haizhu District with his family members between Sunday and Tuesday last week. After returning to Zhuhai City, the statement said, he came down with a fever and joint pain on Friday morning, after which he was brought to Macau by his family members where he received treatment at the private Kiang Wu Hospital.
After outpatient treatment for his symptoms, the statement said, the boy was then taken by his family members back to his home in Zhuhai.
According to the statement, he was diagnosed with chikungunya fever by the Health Bureau’s Public Health Laboratory on Friday night.
The boy was in a stable condition at the time of Saturday’s statement.
The statement underlined that the Macau Health Bureau has classified the boy’s case as a chikungunya case imported into Macau after considering his travel history and the time of the onset of his symptoms, as well as its laboratory test results.
The disease is known as “wat gung beng” (屈公病) in Cantonese.
This year’s 10th imported dengue case
Meanwhile, the Health Bureau announced in a separate statement on Saturday that Macau has recorded this year’s 10th imported case of dengue fever.
The case was also confirmed by the bureau’s Public Health Laboratory on Friday night. The patient is a 33-year-old male non-resident worker (NRW) who lives near Barra. He visited Malaysia between August 11 and 17. After returning to Macau, he came down with a fever and muscle pain on Thursday last week. His symptoms worsened the next day so that he sought treatment at Kiang Wu Hospital where he was then hospitalised.
The man was in a stable condition and still undergoing hospital treatment at the time of Saturday’s statement.
Both chikungunya fever and dengue fever are mosquito-borne diseases.
This year, Macau has so far reported two locally transmitted cases of chikungunya fever, both of which were detected early this month, and one locally transmitted case of dengue fever, which was detected early last month.
Medical sources have told the Post that thanks to the local government’s promptly implemented measures to strengthen its mosquito control operations across the city, Macau has so far been spared a local outbreak of chikungunya fever, despite the fact that neighbouring Guangdong Province has been hit by an outbreak of the disease since last month.
According to mainland media reports, the chikungunya outbreak in Guangdong has gradually been subsiding over the past few weeks.
This undated handout photo released by the Health Bureau (SSM) last week shows a worker conducting chemical mosquito control in Largo do Lilau.
