“All it takes is one of those individuals who arrives back in the United States at the stage where they have virus in their blood”, said Scott Weaver, an expert in mosquito-borne viral diseases at the University Texas Medical Branch’s Galveston National Laboratory. Brazil, the country most affected, will receive global assistance to counteract the outbreak and spread of the virus.
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“Don’t have sex with a virus, it’s that simple”, said Jill Rabin, co-chief of the division of ambulatory care at Women’s Health Programs at Northwell Health in NY.
These countermeasures were drawn up during an emergency government meeting attended by the vice ministers of the health, foreign, and justice ministries and officials from relevant government agencies.
Zika is carried by mosquitoes and has been linked to thousands of suspected cases of underdeveloped brains.
Brazilian officials have lowered the country’s number of suspected microcephaly cases, to 3,670 from 3,893 on January 20. The sexual partner became infected while traveling to Venezuela, which has a Zika outbreak, the Dallas County Health and Human Services said.
“We believe the association is guilty until proven innocent”, he said, referring to the connection drawn in Brazil between the Zika virus and microcephaly, a condition where babies are born with abnormally small heads.
Although scientists have known for some time that Zika can be transmitted through sex, the vast majority of cases are spread through the bite of infected mosquitoes, much like malaria or West Nile virus.
A total of 404 cases have so far been confirmed – up from 270 last week – while 709 cases have been discarded, the country’s health ministry said. “Zika is not new – it has been around since the 1950s – but this strain is showing that it can be transmitted from the mother to the developing fetus”, she said.
“We will work very closely with all local health care providers and health care facilities” to make screening available for Pennsylvanians at risk of contracting Zika, said Loren K. Robinson, a deputy secretary in the state health department. About three million babies are born in Brazil each year.
President Dilma Rousseff said Tuesday that Brazil would devote all necessary resources to battling the virus. Normally, about 150 cases of microcephaly are reported, and Brazil says it is investigating almost 4,000 cases. It wasn’t believed to cause any serious effects until previous year; about 80 percent of infected people never experience symptoms.
“With higher temperatures you have more mosquitoes feeding more frequently and having a greater chance of acquiring infection”. It also said other visitors should use insect repellent and take other precautions to prevent mosquito bites.
In an address to a joint session of Congress, she said considerable funds would be set aside for the programme.
Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and Puerto Rico have all warned women not to get pregnant.
The firm has developed two candidate vaccines, using a live imported Zika virus.
What is the history of the Zika virus?
The HSE said neither of the confirmed cases in Ireland is “at risk of pregnancy”.
“Mass community engagement” in areas with the mosquitos and their breeding grounds, and rapid development of diagnostic tools are essential to curbing the virus, as a vaccine may be years away, said Costello, a paediatrician. The medical literature also has one case in which the virus was detected in semen.
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Sanofi’s announcement Tuesday comes the day after the World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the explosive spread of the mosquito-borne virus, which has been linked to birth defects in the Americas.
