PUTRAJAYA, Sept 2 — The first confirmed Zika case in Malaysia, which made local and international headlines yesterday, is likely to spur ‘a good kind’ of panic among the public.

Health Ministry’s disease control division director Dr Chong Chee Keong said the panic among the public on the virus will prompt them to not have a nonchalant attitude in tackling the problem.

"It is good for them to have a sense of panic at this point. This will prompt them to take proactive measures to combat the virus, unlike the apathy shown towards dengue.

"The public is knowledgeable about dengue. They know what to do to eliminate breeding grounds but somehow it never translates into action. Maybe it is apathy.

"The ministry hopes it would not be the same case with Zika especially now that emotions with the discovery of our very first case,” he told Malay Mail.

He urged the public to learn about the virus and the danger it entails so they know what to do to help reduce Zika from spreading.

"Go to reliable sources, like the Health Ministry portal, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and read up on Zika. The more you learn about the disease, the better equipped you are to bring Zika to a halt.”

He said while it was the ministry responsibility to help cure those infected with Zika virus, every individual should be responsible for the prevention part of the problem.

"When you talk about patients, yes it is 100 per cent our responsibility but you have a role to play as you are very much a part of the solution. Get rid of the couldn’t-care-less attitude,” he said.

Dr Chong said in dealing with Zika, the vector control methods used by the ministry is similar to that used to combat dengue, which include fogging exercises and eliminating breeding ground of Aedes aegypti.

"For adult mosquitoes, we perform external and internal fogging activities which covers the 400m radius of a residential home, its compound and its interior.

"For larvae, we conduct source reduction where we perform inspections and the process of eliminating breeding grounds,” he said.

He said considering there was only one confirmed case of Zika in the country, the ministry has enough resources to fight the disease.

"The tools of the trade are similar to that used to prevent dengue and they have been in place for some time. So that covers up a huge chunk of what the ministry plans to do to combat Zika,” he said.