The zika virus is spreading in Mexico and Jalisco is the worst affected state.
Even with 43 confirmed cases of Zika in 2018, Jalisco has nothing to fear from this disease, Health Secretary Alfonso Petersen said this week.
“We haven’t had a single fatality, nor even a serious complication associated with this disease,” he said.
Petersen admitted that four pregnant women have contracted the virus but all are in stable condition. Infection during pregnancy can cause a birth defect called microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects.
Zika is spread by daytime-active Aedes mosquitoes and related to the dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and West Nile viruses.
There was an epidemic in 2015 and 2016 on the American continent, with the highest number of infections – 1.5 million – occurring in Brazil, where 3,500 cases of microcephaly were reported between October 2015 and January 2016.
As of August 2017, the number of new Zika virus cases in the Americas had fallen dramatically.
Petersen also noted that the number of dengue cases reported this year in Jalisco has dropped significantly to just 311.