The Bahamas has been declared Zika-free by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"The Bahamas has no known risk of Zika from mosquitoes,"
according to the CDC, which has removed the Bahamas from its list of locations
where the Zika virus is being transmitted.
The Bahamas had been added to the list in August 2016, along
with other Caribbean countries which still remain on the list, although the
reports of Zika cases have fallen off drastically since the peak of the
outbreak in 2016.
The Bahamas Ministry of Health confirmed that the last
reported cases of Zika were in November 2016. Various government agencies in
the Bahamas, including the Ministry of Health, the Department of Public Health
and the Department of Environmental Health continue to operate surveillance
program and mosquito management to prevent the threat of Zika transmission.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also downgraded the
Bahamas from a Category 2 to a Category 3 on its Zika Virus (ZIKV)
Classification Table, signifying that there have been no new cases of Zika
identified in the Bahamas in the past 12 months.