The U.S. government, with its considerable resources, ought to commit to finding a more effective test to diagnose Zika, determine whether there is a point in pregnancy when the virus is most risky to a fetus, and work diligently on a vaccine, which could take years to produce. The committee believes colder and drier weather in August in Rio will reduce cases of Zika.
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The case, announced by Dallas County health officials, involved a patient who had sex with someone who had recently returned from Venezuela infected with the mosquito-borne virus. The link between the two conditions has not been medically proven. “We can’t say we won’t have any cases (during the games) but we see this as a minimal risk”. The second person did not travel. It is unclear whether in pregnant women the virus crosses the placenta and causes microcephaly.
“It’s very rare, but the Zika virus like other mosquito-borne diseases can be transmitted sexually”, Muturi said.
The virus has been reported in more than 30 countries and linked to microcephaly, in which babies have abnormally small heads and improperly developed brains.
Zika is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also spreads dengue fever, and was first discovered in Uganda in 1947.
“We are anxious that this could also spread back into other areas of the world where the population may not be immune, and we know that the mosquitos that carry Zika virus (…) are present through most of Africa, parts of southern Europe and many parts of Asia, particularly south Asia”, he said. The person infected did not travel to the South American country, county health officials said.
There is no vaccine, and woman who are or who could be pregnant have been advised reconsider their plans to travel to affected areas – including Latin America, Cape Verde, Samoa and Tonga – or if this is not possible, to be scrupulous in protecting themselves against mosquito bites.
Alaka Basu, a senior fellow for public health at the UN Foundation, told the BBC: “This significance is parallel with the HIV/Aids case”.
Dallas County Health and Human Services said it received confirmation of the case in Dallas from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For one, it’s still not likely that zika is about to sweep the nation, in part due to the fact that it’s too cold for the mosquitoes that transmit zika to survive in most of the country. “Twenty percent of people who are infected with the virus get symptoms”.
Both Hannan and Ephantus Muturi, director of medical entomology at the Illinois Natural History Survey, said more research needs to be done to understand the connection between Zika virus and microcephaly. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global emergency on Monday.
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The CDC’s counterpart in England, Public Health England, has already recommended that women whose partners have traveled to a country with an active Zika outbreak should avoid getting pregnant for a period of time after the man’s return. Zika is spread by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus.
