Zika virus detected in India first

India has reported three cases of the Zika virus for the first time, including two pregnant women who delivered healthy babies.

Health Ministry officials said Sunday that the three patients in western Gujarat state had recovered. 

“There is no need to panic,’’ Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, a top health ministry official, told reporters, according to the Voice of America.

The World Health Organization said in a statement released Friday that the three cases that India reported to the WHO on May 15 were detected through routine blood surveillance in a hospital in Ahmadabad, Gujarat’s capital. Two cases were detected in February and November last year, while a third case was detected in January this year. 

Swaminathan, who heads the Indian Council of Medical Research, said the three patients had not traveled overseas and had acquired the infection locally. 

The virus is spread by the daytime-active Aedes mosquito.

Although Zika was first identified in 1947, the virus wasn’t considered a major health threat until a major outbreak in Brazil in 2015 revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects when pregnant women are infected.