On the heels of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) statement that the Zika virus was “spreading explosively”, the Centre said it has constituted a special, technical group to monitor the spread of Zika in other countries.
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Zika has been spreading quickly in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The institute said 37.2 percent of pregnant women with Zika live in Norte de Santander Province, along the eastern border with Venezuela.
In a high-level meeting headed by health minister J P Nadda on Friday, the ministry chose to constitute a technical panel to monitor the situation arising out of the spread of the Zika virus and strengthen surveillance against it.
Symptoms of those afflicted with Zika virus include mild fever, skin rash and conjunctivitis, which normally last for two to seven days.
But now it appears that a number of those cases may not in fact be microcephaly, or not linked to Zika.
The WHO’s Chan said that while a direct causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations has not yet been established, it is “strongly suspected”.
Earlier this week, Colombian authorities ordered hospitals in lower-lying areas to prepare for the spread of the disease, which is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Meanwhile, in a report by CBS Los Angeles, a leading expert on Zika virus said that the disease is more than we have imagined.
A spokesman for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said that “reports must be treated as anecdotal because little pertinent supporting diagnostic information is available”. According to the CDC, it is now in more than 20 countries, spread primarily by the same kind of mosquito – the Aedes species – that transmits other tropical illnesses such as dengue and yellow fever. The potentially infected individuals would have acquired the virus while out of the country, she said.
The WHO predicts that three to four million people could be infected with Zika virus in the Americas this year and is taking precautions to protect those who will attending the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.
“I don’t want to give misconception here, we’re expecting there to be some local transmission, but based on the experience with the other mosquito borne viruses and those areas in the southern united states, we are not expecting really big hard to control ones”, Schuchat said.
With the virus already affecting some 193 municipalities, authorities also recommended that couples delay attempts to become pregnant for six to eight months.
There are worries over a lack of awareness being raised about suspected zika cases in American Samoa, and its possible link to severe birth defects. “It will be worse than the Thalidomide generation because then the cause could be withdrawn from the market”, she said.
Spraying against Zika. A flight attendant for an global airline sprays a combination broad-spectrum disinfectant cleaner, virucide, anti microbial and sanitizer inside the aircraft she is working in amid concerns over the Zika virus.
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Since the outbreak, there have been over 4,000 cases of babies born with microcephaly in Brazil, although various others causes can also be attributed to the rise. However, further tests revealed that the virus was present in his semen and in his urine, according to Daily Mail.
