Macau recorded this year’s 14th imported case of chikungunya fever yesterday, the Health Bureau (SSM) announced in a statement last night.
According to the statement, the patient is a 64-year-old local woman who lives in Camilo Pessanha Building (庇山耶大廈) on Travessa de Coelho do Amaral (連勝巷), an alley near Sacred Heart Canossian College on Avenida do Coronel Mesquita (美副將大馬路).
The woman visited Jiangmen City between September 3 and Sunday during which she came down with a rash and joint pain in her arms and legs on Wednesday last week so that she sought medical treatment there. However, her symptoms did not improve.
After returning to Macau on Sunday, the statement said, the woman immediately sought treatment at the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre.
A blood test yesterday confirmed her to be infected with chikungunya fever.
The woman was in a stable condition at the time of last night’s statement, which said that she has been hospitalised for treatment.
In response to the woman’s case, the bureau has launched special mosquito eradication operations in the vicinity of her home, covering the nearby Sacred Heart Canossian College Catholic school, as a precautionary measure.
Macau logs 3 local chikungunya cases
So far this year, Macau has reported three locally transmitted cases of chikungunya fever, with the first two detected early last month, while the third one was confirmed on September 7.
According to the bureau’s announcement on Sunday last week, the patient of the third local case of chikungunya fever is a 37-year-old local man who lives in the Pat Tat Sun Chuen (八達新邨) residential estate in Areia Preta district. His case was classified as a local one as he had not travelled outside Macau before coming down with symptoms.
The man told the bureau that he was bitten by mosquitoes on Rua da Vitória (得勝街) on September 2, a street near the Horta da Mitra wet market.
Due to continued high mosquito activity, neighbouring Guangdong Province is continuing its efforts to control its chikungunya outbreak, which started in July and is now subsiding. According to data from Guangdong’s health authorities, the province recorded a total of 201 new locally transmitted cases of chikungunya fever last week.
Image courtesy of American Pain Society
