The National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Friday that although the mainland is at risk of the Zika virus, there is a low possibility of an outbreak. 

Travelers from different parts of the world are expected to increase in the following weeks with the celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year on February 8, raising the possibility of importing Zika virus from outside the mainland. No case has been reported in China thus far. 

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"The risk for cases to be imported into China is quite high," George Gao, deputy director general of the Chinese Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Bloomberg.

The Zika virus is terrorizing Latin America and the Carribean, and is expected to enter North America. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there could be three to four million cases of Zika virus in the Americas. 

The virus is believed to be the cause of microcephaly in the region. Since the outbreak in 2014, the number of infants born with microcephaly or abnormally small heads has increased. The government of Latin American countries have been extremely alarmed that they have urged women to avoid getting pregnant until 2017. 

But the CDC is optimistic that should a case of Zika virus enters the country, the cold weather will keep it from spreading too much.

Nevertheless, they warned the public to be extra vigilant and watch out for symptoms which include joint pains, headache, muscle and eye pains, fever, rash, and conjunctivitis. 

The CDC assured that they already developed testing reagents to diagnose the virus.

"China has made huge progress in technologies and acts more swiftly in response to any outbreak of infectious disease 12 years after the SARS outbreak," said He Xiong, deputy director of the Beijing CDC. 

Carriers of Zika virus, the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, are found in large areas in Southern China, but the CDC is now training health professionals to identify and treat the virus. 

It added that they will work with WHO to monitor the outbreak in other regions. 

TagsZika virus outbreak, Zika virus in China, Zika virus cases in China, China Center of Disease Control and Prevention