University student recovery from Zika virus contracted in Tonga Featured
Auckland teen Jen Byrn has fully recovered from her nasty brush with the Zika virus.
22 May, 2016. Auckland teenager Jen Byrn has recovered fully from her frightening brush with the Zika virus she contracted on holiday in Tonga in January.
Her nasty symptoms took about a week and a half to subside, just in time for her shift to Wellington to start Bachelor of Arts studies at Victoria University.
"I was worried about whether it would impact on moving to Wellington, but it didn't," the 18-year-old said on Friday.
But she is eager to warn others about the potential risks from the mosquito-borne disease that she knew nothing about until she returned home from Tonga with a spotty red rash, painful eyes, headaches and swollen sore fingers: "Wear insect repellent'.
She went to Tonga for a week with friends on January 22 and suffered plenty of mosquito bites, but when she started feeling unwell about four days into the trip, she suspected she had eaten bad food.
However, her symptoms worsened and by the evening after she arrived home, her family took her to Auckland Hospital's emergency department, where doctors immediately diagnosed Zika virus.
She had to wait a week for blood test results to confirm the diagnosis, which came as a relief, but no surprise.
"If it hadn't been Zika, what else could it be? It wasn't terrible news because I had got used to it in my head by then."
While doctors were unsure whether she would suffer any long-term effects, she said she was "100 per cent now" and was confident it would have no lasting impacts.
Stuff.co.nz
