SEPTEMBER 4 — It went from one to 41 in what must have been a single day.

The first locally transmitted Zika case in Singapore was confirmed on August 27. A 47-year-old Malaysian woman living at Block 102 Aljunied Crescent was identified by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and National Environment Agency (NEA).

A day later, the number of cases rose to 41. Most of those infected were foreign construction workers, and all lived or worked within the same region of the country, said the health ministry.

How did the number of cases jump so rapidly, another Ministry of Health (MOH) cover-up? In truth, the explanation — it would seem — is considerably less exciting and rather simple. Upon confirming that first case, the authorities went back to run confirmation tests on previous cases which then unearthed the additional diagnoses. Some had, in fact, already long recovered from the infection entirely.

Yet on social media and in taxis (both hotspots for uncensored opinion on the country) Singaporeans wondered if something more sinister was at play; the government was lying, things were much worse than they were being told?

This tells us two things 1) the state has thorough and rapid systems for disease control in place — hence such a large number of detections in such a short space of time 2) the state has to work harder to address trust issues as a large proportion of the general public perceive the information they receive via state channels as suspect.

Since the initial announcement, the total number of cases has climbed yet further. As of September 2, the count was 115 cases spreading beyond the original cluster in the East — including my neighbourhood as well, leaving my family suddenly much more conscientious about spotting still puddles in the area.

Fortunately, this particular outbreak is not especially lethal. The BBC reports that deaths are extremely rare and only one-in-five people infected is thought to develop symptoms at all which include mild fever, conjunctivitis (red, sore eyes), headache, joint pain or a rash.

A worker fogs the common area of a public housing estate at a new Zika cluster in Singapore September 1, 2016. — Reuters pic

The biggest threat appears to be to pregnant women as their fetuses now risk being born with microcephaly — incompletely developed brains. A nation full of at-risk babies is a nation that needs to pull together and work to eradicate the Aedes mosquito from breeding but overall this epidemic is not cause for mass hysteria.

In fact after stopping the spread of the disease, preventing panic has to be the government’s next priority.

There is no reason for a SARS-style disruption and major economic fall-out on account of Zika.

The government’s response on the disease control front appears to be quite robust.

The American Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Director Dr Tom Frieden summed it up best. He said any time there is a disease outbreak in Singapore, it tells us how difficult that disease is to control because of the city-state’s tight system for controlling disease.

In terms of communication, however, there is a long way to go. The government hasn’t done enough to explain what Zika is and failed to get the message out fast enough in our four national languages and across social media.

Recent scandals such as the one where a Hepatitis C outbreak at the Singapore General Hospital went unreported for months hasn’t engendered confidence in the Ministry of Health’s information systems.

This is part of a larger problem — people are suspicious of government information, placing more faith in the online rumour mill and misinformed gossip than official channels and this can only be solved with considerably more transparency and active feedback loops.

After all, this outbreak may not be deadly but who is to say what will come next?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.