The World Health Organisation yesterday said the virus posed a threat of “alarming proportions” and that four million people could be affected this year in the Americas.
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The virus has been linked to a medical condition known as microcephaly, a disabling birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.
“We’re looking at providing additional entomology support, additional vector control workers”, said Kawaoka.
Colombia has seen a sharp spike in the number of patients diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder that can cause paralysis among people with the Zika virus, the health minister has said.
Officials in both states urged residents planning to travel overseas to check health advisories.
The national health institute said in an epidemiology bulletin that there are 20,927 confirmed cases of the disease in Colombia, with 2,116 pregnant women among them.
“You have multiple countries in South America and in the Caribbean, so by anybody’s definition that would be considered a pandemic”, Fauci said.
Malaysia’s Health Ministry said Zika had not yet been detected.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of 24 overseas countries and territories where the mosquito-borne virus has been found, including Brazil, Puerto Rico and Samoa.
The fact that Brazil is hosting the Olympics this summer might make it inconvenient and uncomfortable as the incidence of birth defects might just be a Brazil problem and would be a danger to those visiting during the Olympics. “People who have visited those countries and come back”.
Amnuay said there was “no technical evidence” of widespread immunity in Thailand but individuals exposed to the virus would “of course develop” antibodies as with other viruses.
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According to the CDC, Zika virus infections rarely end in hospitalization, and the symptoms generally go away after a few days or weeks. Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization noted that Brazil is contending with multiple outbreaks of disease spread by the same mosquitoes, the Aedes species, including dengue and chikungunya, which both cause fevers and joint pain.
