The donors were believed to have been infected with the mosquito-borne virus.
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Meanwhile, in the first case of its kind in Europe, Spain’s health ministry said a pregnant woman who had returned from Colombia had been diagnosed with the virus.
“At the present, there is no new reported case of Zika virus in Cambodia; however, we need to take precautious measures to prevent the transmission of the virus”, Rekol said. Researchers have identified evidence of Zika infection in 17 of these cases, either in the baby or in the mother.
“As a result of this expanded testing being offered in NY, more women and their clinicians will have better information to make the right healthcare decisions at the cutting edge of laboratory science”, state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said in a statement. United States health officials have advised pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin American and Caribbean countries where they may be exposed to Zika. He sought to assure people that Florida, a hub for cruises and flights to Central and South America where the outbreak is, was safe.
“We have to have a healthy respect for this virus but I don’t think we have to be unduly alarmed just yet”, said Paul Roepe, Georgetown University Medical Center.
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi earlier said it had begun researching a vaccine for Zika, for which there is now no specific treatment.
Andrea, an obstetrician from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraiba state in Brazil’s north-eastern region, said three of her patients who had Zika sought advice on how to end the pregnancies in the past two weeks.
On Friday, Brazilian scientists announced they had found active virus in saliva and urine samples from people infected with Zika.
What is the history of the Zika virus?
Ireland yesterday (Feb 3) urged men to wear a condom during sex for one month after returning from a country affected by the Zika virus, as Britain said returning travellers can not donate blood for a month.
For the first time, a health emergency has been declared in the US because of the Zika virus, which is suspected of causing birth defects. “There is another species, the Aedes albopictus, is here in the United States, and we know it can transmit both dengue fever and the Chikungunya virus, and we suspect it may be a possible vector for transmitting the Zika virus”.
What other complications are associated with Zika? During an outbreak of Zika from 2013-2014 in French Polynesia, national health authorities reported an unusual increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome.
But some Brazilian health experts warn the scientific ignorance about Zika parallels the Aids crisis in the 1980s.
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Transmission of Zika through blood transfusions adds another dimension to the outbreak of the virus.
