The screening facilities set up at the Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake to screen incoming passengers, to prevent them from bringing the deadly Zika virus into the island, are now fully operational and still there is no threat to Sri Lanka, Minister of Health Dr Rajitha Senaratne said. 

Addressing the weekly Cabinet briefing held at Government Information Department today (28), the Minister stated that the screening facilities set up by the Health Ministry at the country’s main airport will monitor the visitors to the country to observe whether they are showing symptoms of Zika.
 
“A strong surveillance system to monitor and screen tourists, especially Latin Americans and Africans arriving at the airport has now been established,” the Minister said.

Zika, linked to shrunken brains in children, has caused panic in Brazil. Thousands of people have been infected there and it has spread to some 20 countries.

The Brazilian President, Dilma Roussef, has urged Latin America to unite in combating the virus, the BBC reported.

The Zika virus was discovered in monkeys in 1947 in Uganda’s Zika Forest, with the first human case registered in Nigeria in 1954 but for decades it did not appear to pose much of a threat to people and was largely ignored by the scientific community.

It was only with an outbreak on the Micronesian island of Yap in 2007 that some researchers began to take an interest. However, in the past year the virus “exploded”, sweeping through the Caribbean and Latin America.

The symptoms in adults and children are similar to those for dengue fever but generally milder, including flu-like aches, inflammation of the eyes, joint pain and rashes although some people have no symptoms at all.

In rare cases the disease may also lead to complications including Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system which can cause paralysis.

-With inputs from agencies