“We are neither recommending any restrictions on travel or worldwide trade, nor imposing any sort of screening measures for checking incoming travellers at airport of Pakistan”, the press release said, adding, that the Ministry of Health and the WHO were monitoring the situation following reports of Zika virus cases in Latin America.
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Since October, 4,180 cases of microcephaly have been reported in Brazil but only 270 have so far been confirmed, with just six so far linked by the government to Zika.
There is no vaccine or treatment.
The W.H.O. announced it will hold an emergency meeting to try to figure out how to stop the transmission of the Zika virus which is “spreading explosively across the Americas”.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said he did not expect the United States to be hit hard like other some countries in South America and the Caribbean.
Although the disease is mainly transmitted through mosquitoes, PHE said sexual transmission had been recorded in a “limited number of cases”.
This mosquito also carries the viruses that cause Dengue and Chikungunya which are of great public health concern in tropical countries like India.
Pregnant women have been advised not to travel to certain areas to reduce the risk of contracting the virus, including Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Saint Martin and Mexico, among others.
No matter how fast they are able to act, scientists have warned that it could take years for a Zika virus to become commercially available.
The virus isn’t widespread in the U.S. The CDC has confirmed 31 Americans have been diagnosed with Zika infections in the past year. The remainder has mild symptoms such as fever, skin rash and headache.
There are so far no reported cases of microcephaly or deaths from the virus in Colombia.
Meaning those people didn’t actually get the virus in the U.S.m but Weems said it probably won’t be long before you can.
Efforts to combat Zika are focused on protecting people from being bitten and on eradicating mosquitoes, a tough task in many parts of Latin America, where people live in poverty and there are plentiful breeding grounds for the insect.
Aedes Aegypti mosquito carries the virus which is thought to cause neurological problems like microcephaly, a condition that results in abnormally small heads in babies.
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The Texas Department of State Health Services is encouraging people to follow travel precautions for regions and certain countries where Zika virus transmission is ongoing.
