“Now that we can be more convincing that Zika virus does cause microcephaly, we hope that people will focus on our prevention messages more closely”.
Advertisement
DeLauro said she asked her GOP colleagues as recently as Tuesday to hold public hearings on Zika funding but said they have refused.
“The main objective of our research is to inform people that there is a Zika virus NS1 protein that can be used as an important virus locator in the future”.
But the White House and its Democratic allies say more money is needed now and they have turned up the heat on Republicans, who are responsible for shepherding the Obama request since they are in control of both sides of Capitol Hill.
As of April 13, there had been 358 reported cases of Zika in the US, which were all linked to travel.
A health seminar on the Zika virus and how it affects pregnant women and women of childbearing age is scheduled for Wednesday, May 4, at the North Bergen Public Library, 8411 Bergenline Ave., North Bergen.
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control said seven British Columbians have tested positive for Zika out of 635 residents who were tested in recent months.
She said there is now no vaccine or treatment for the virus, and current data indicates about one per cent of pregnant women with the virus have children with birth defects. “Is this the message that we want to send to American women: Don’t get pregnant?”
While there have been no reported cases of domestically transmitted cases of Zika in the continental United States, the virus has spread across Latin America and the South Pacific.
Zika virus in pregnancy is associated with microcephaly in newborns, a condition associated with an abnormally small head and brain.
“A soda bottle cap of water can facilitate the growth of over 1,000 mosquitoes in a week”, according to a Health Services news release.
The Zika virus also can be spread through sex. The CDC has created maps that show regions of the southern, central and eastern US where the two types of mosquitoes known to carry Zika could turn up in 2016. Indeed, the study notes that other researchers were unable to detect Zika virus in any mosquitoes during a 2007 outbreak in Micronesia, despite widespread “active surveillance”.
While mosquitoes can transmit a variety of diseases, Zika has become the main concern of state and federal health officials, in part, because there are still many unknowns about the virus.
Advertisement
Zika is transmitted primarily through the bite of the aedes aegypti mosquito and health officials believe preventing bites is the best defense.
