NAYPYIDAW:- Myanmar’s government said Friday that a pregnant foreign woman has been diagnosed with the country’s first case of Zika, a mosquito-borne virus linked to birth defects. The World Health Organization warned earlier this month that Zika was likely to spread throughout Asia after being detected in 70 countries, including at least 19 in the Asia Pacific region. While the virus has been present in Southeast Asia for years, there has been an uptick in the number of recorded cases in recent months.

“Authorities confirmed the infection in the 32-year-old foreign woman yesterday following a laboratory test,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported Friday. Soe Lwin Nyein, the director of Myanmar’s public health department, told reporters she was the country’s “first Zika victim”.