The global health organisation advised countries in the region to strengthen vector control, surveillance and laboratory detection of the Zika virus and neurological complications, as well as communications with those at risk.
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Nine new cases of the Zika virus were confirmed on January 29 by Flordia state health officials, United Media Publishing reports.
Symptoms of infection may include fever, joint pain, itching, rash, conjunctivitis or red eyes, headache, muscle pain and eye pain. According to health authorities, the virus may trigger a brain abnormality called microcephaly (abnormal smallness of the head) in new-born babies though the link is yet to be established. The W.H.O. will soon hold an emergency meeting in hopes of containing the virus before it creates Ebola-level panic.
Rousseff said tests for the development of a vaccine would begin next week at the Butantan Institute, one of Brazil’s leading biomedical research centres in Sao Paulo.
While mosquitoes are the main source of transmission, but there are other possibilities, Taylor said.
“If travel to these areas is unavoidable, or they live in areas where Zika virus transmission is occurring, they should take scrupulous insect bite avoidance measures both during daytime and night-time hours”.
Lavinia Schüler-Faccini, a researcher at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and president of the Brazilian Society of Genetic Medicine, says that she is certain that there has been a substantial increase in microcephaly cases.
The Zika virus is spreading rapidly after it was detected past year in Brazil.
“We are aware of the Zika outbreak in Florida and are monitoring each case very closely”, Dr. Geoff Hutchinson of the Division of Epidemiology and Immunization at the Florida Department of Public Health said.
Zika had been viewed as a relatively mild illness until Brazilian health officials identified it as a matter of concern for pregnant women. “If it is introduced by an infected Malaysian or by a visitor to Malaysia, it could spread quickly”, said Lokman Hakim Sulaiman, Malaysia’s Health Ministry deputy director-general. “Otherwise, this virus is not unlike the West Nile Virus that entered the U.S.in 1999 or Chickungunya, Dengue or really any other mosquito-borne arbovirus”.
The Health Ministry is advising caution and says it’s following the situation in countries with the Zika virus closely.
Operation Blessing International is distributing mosquito nets to pregnant women in El Salvador and Haiti.
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The CDC also lists Brazil, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela in South America as well as Barbados, the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.
