article: On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said India's health ministry had confirmed three cases of the mosquito-borne virus from the city of Ahmedabad in western Gujarat state. Authorities in Gujarat said the cases were reported in a bustling neighbourhood between November 2016 and February 2017. The infection has been linked to severe birth defects in almost 30 countries. These include microcephaly, where babies are born with abnormally small heads and restricted brain development. Although the virus is mostly spread by mosquitoes, it can also be sexually transmitted. Even before the first official case of the Zika virus was registered in Nigeria, researchers concluded in a paper published in 1953 that "significant numbers" of people had been exposed to the virus in India. A total of 33 of the 196 people tested for the new disease had immunity. More than 60 years later, the three cases in India detailed in a statement by the UN health agency included two women, aged 22 and 34, and a 64-year-old man. The 34-year-old woman delivered a "clinically well baby" on 9 November 2016; the 22-year-old woman was tested positive for the virus in her 37th week of pregnancy. None of the three, according to reports, had travelled outside the country. "The two pregnant mothers have delivered healthy babies and the 64-year-old senior citizen has shown no complications at all," JN Singh, the senior-most bureaucrat in Gujarat, told reporters at the weekend. He also said the government "consciously did not go public with the cases" as the number of cases didn't rise. But there has been shock and consternation among many independent public health professionals and analysts on why the public was not informed of the cases immediately after they were detected. "This is unprecedented in India's public health history. It is also disturbing and raises a lot of ethical issues. You have to take the community into confidence. You can do it without spreading panic. That is the job of a sound public health policy," Rajib Dasgupta, a professor in the community medicine department at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, told me. For one, critics say, on 17 March, junior health minister Anupriya Patel, responding to a question in the parliament said, that "so far, only one-case of laboratory-positive Zika virus has been detected as part of a routine laboratory surveillance in January 2017". The government was lying, they said, because the third - and final - case had been detected in January. A health official, however, defended the minister, saying "while two cases were picked up in January for testing and the third in February, only one confirmed case had been detected while [the minister was] replying to the parliament". Nitpicking apart, many say it is surprising that the government decided to remain quiet for months about the first cases of a globally prevalent disease which is caused by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also carries the dengue and chikungunya viruses, both widely prevalent in India. They say it is surprising that the government, which gives regular public updates on dengue and chikungunya cases, decided
summary: Did India conceal its first cases of the Zika virus?