TRIBUNNEWS.COM – Authority in Kerala region, India issued a statewide warning.
The warning was issued after the Zika virus case was confirmed, news agency AFP report.
A total of 13 suspected cases are being investigated, Kerala state health minister Veena George said.
Samples from the 13 suspected cases have been sent for further investigation to a laboratory in Pune.
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A 24-year-old pregnant woman was confirmed to be infected with the mosquito-borne disease.
He is undergoing treatment at a hospital in the city of Thiruvananthapuram.
Pregnant women are especially vulnerable and can pass the disease on to their newborn babies.
It can lead to conditions such as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare auto-immune disease.
Zika is generally spread through the bite of the Aedes mosquito but can also be transmitted sexually, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus was first discovered in monkeys in Uganda’s Zika forest in 1947.
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