Those infected include 36 foreign construction workers employed at a site near Aljunied in the southeast of the island, the health ministry and the National Environment Agency (NEA) said in a joint statement on Sunday.
On Saturday, authorities had confirmed Singapore’s firstcase of a local transmission of the virus, to a 47-year-oldMalaysian woman, also from the Aljunied area.
“MOH (the ministry of health) cannot rule out further community transmission in Singapore since some of those testedpositive also live or work in other parts of Singapore,” thestatement said. “We expect to identify more positive cases.”
The authorities said they have tested 124 people, primarily construction workers. Seventy-eight tested negative and fivecases were pending. Thirty-four patients have fully recovered.It was not immediately clear where the foreign workers werefrom, but Singapore hosts a large contingent of workers from theAsian sub-continent.
“All the cases are residents or workers in the Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive area. They are not known to have travelledto Zika-affected areas recently, and are thus likely to have been infected in Singapore. This confirms that localtransmission of Zika virus infection has taken place,” the statement said.
Dozens of NEA staff cleaned drains and sprayed insecticide in the mainly residential area early on Sunday, and volunteersand contractors handed out leaflets and insect repellent. The NEA workers had accessed more than 1,800 premises of a total of6,000 in the area to check for mosquito breeding.
Local residents welcomed the clean-up.
“I’m very scared of mosquitoes because they always seem tobite me, they never bite my husband,” Janice, 31, who gave onlyher first name, told Reuters. “This concerns me because maybe ina couple of years I want to have another (child).”
Zika was detected in Brazil last year and has since spreadacross the Americas. The virus poses a risk to pregnant womenbecause it can cause severe birth defects. It has been linked tomore than 1,600 cases of microcephaly in Brazil.
REGIONAL RISK
The Singapore government said there were “ongoing localtransmission” cases in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Othercountries in the region to have detected the Zika virus since2013 include Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives andthe Philippines, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Malaysia said on Sunday it stepped up surveillance at maintransit points with Singapore.
Health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said leafletson Zika prevention were being handed out and paramedics were atentry points to handle visitors with potential symptoms.
As of this month, Malaysia said it has screened more than 2million visitors at air, sea and land entrances, and found noZika infections.
In Thailand, where close to 100 cases of Zika have been recorded across 10 provinces this year, the Department of Disease Control (DDC) was screening all athletes returning fromthe Olympic Games in Brazil, but was not otherwise changing its prevention measures.
“Every country in this region has Zika transmission cases,”said Prasert Thongcharoen, an adviser to the DDC. “Thailand has,however, managed to contain the problem through early detection.”
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir saidthe country was “following developments”. Oskar Pribadi, ahealth ministry official, said there have been no recent Zika cases.
Vietnam has to date reported three cases oflocally-transmitted Zika infection.
The current strain of Zika that is sweeping through Latin America and the Caribbean originated in Asia, where people couldhave built up greater immunity.
US health officials have concluded that Zika infections inpregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked bysmall head size that can lead to severe developmental problems.
The WHO has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.//Reuters

A 4.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Mount Kinabalu area, some 16km west of Ranau at about 9:39am Friday, according to the Malaysian Meteorological Department website.

Indonesian capital market investors expect gains of 12 per cent on average per year, the second highest after Russia among 28 countries surveyed by British multinational asset manager Schroders, whose Indonesian operation is the country’s largest private fund manager.
However, they only spend 2.3 years on average on an investment product, the fifth-shortest period in the world, according to Schroders’ Global Investor Study 2016.
“This means we have to educate investors more to invest in the longer term,” said Schroders Indonesia chief executive Michael Tjoajadi. “The public needs to invest more in the capital market as it gives higher returns rather than savings and deposits. Hence, purchasing power will improve faster.”
Indonesians are among the least capital market literate investors in the region, with less than 1 per cent of the country’s more than 250 million people investing in the stock market.
Efforts have been made by the country’s stock market regulator, the Financial Services Authority (OJK), and the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) as well as industry players to promote capital market investment as a long-term instrument to manage money instead of the more popular bank savings or deposits. Local stock markets this year have gained 17 per cent while average bank deposits earn 6.5 per cent per year.
Raymond, not his real name, is |a typical Indonesian investor |based on the Schroders’ survey, as he invests for only one or two years but expects a 15 per cent rate of return per year on his capital market investments.
“Or at least higher than bank deposits or savings,” said the 31-year-old civil servant.
Investors also point to the volatility of the stock market in the past few months as reasons for investing in the short term.
Housewife Siska Cahaya from Serpong, Banten, is among such investors as she invests in stocks for between only two days and three months to reap profits whenever |she can.
“The index moves up and down very quickly these days, I can’t keep some stocks for too long. Whenever I see I can get a 15 per cent gain I will sell,” said Siska, who cashes in her gains to pay for her child’s school fees or mortgage instalments.
Daewoo Securities Indonesia head of research Taye Shim concurred regarding local market volatility, saying that the performance of local stocks swung widely as a result of local corporations’ dependence on volatile commodities prices.
“We believe the business cycle exhibits greater volatility, prompting investors to exit their positions after |a relatively short duration,” he |said, adding that promises from fund managers about high rates of return might be the driver of local investors’ investment decisions, rather than the country’s economic fundamentals, which could lead them to stay longer in the market.

Kenny Baker has sadly passed away and was found on Saturday morning by his nephew Drew, who was also his carer in the latter part of his life,” his agent Johnny Mans said in a statement to AFP.