With the Zika virus sweeping across the Americas and the number of birth defects in Brazil on the rise, a top Brazilian researcher is comparing the Zika pandemic to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
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The country’s health ministry said the woman travelled to Colombia, was presumably infected during the trip and is in her second trimester of pregnancy.
Puerto Rico’s governor has declared a health emergency as more Zika-related cases emerge across the USA territory.
Though presence of the Zika virus has been identified in 17 cases of babies with microcephaly, as the condition is known, there is no solid proof that the virus causes it. Babies with microcephaly have abnormally small heads and often have underdeveloped brains.
In contrast to federal officials’ earlier comments that seemed to pooh-pooh even the idea of a USA outbreak, McNamara said, “I think there very well could be transmission, particularly in typical areas where the mosquito is most common – Florida, Texas and the Gulf Coast, mostly the southeast states”.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reports the state has not had any confirmed cases of Zika.
“So you had the ideal storm: a naive population to the particular infection, a real problem with the mosquito and mosquito-transmitted diseases”, said Fauci.
“The guidance note reaffirms the facts about Zika and focuses on mosquito bite prevention strategies, which are key”.
His action came as the mosquito-borne virus generates increasing concern in the United States.
“Part of our job is actually to provide education to show people how can they do the job themselves to find the places where the mosquito tends to find as a breeding site in the households”.
Mexico is starting to see some Zika cases from mosquitoes in that country, he added.
Susan Stramer, the vice president of scientific affairs for the Red Cross, said that it is also asking donors to immediately notify the organization if they subsequently develop symptoms consistent with the Zika virus within 14 days of donating blood “so that we can quarantine the product”.
According to the CDC, it starts off like lots of illnesses, with sore joints and a fever, maybe a rash or a headache. None of the Zika patients in Florida are pregnant women. The fears of significant global spread by travellers from the Latin American countries to the rest of the world are real. Women who can not avoid travelling should consult their doctors and take steps to avoid mosquito bites, such as wearing long sleeves and trousers. “So our new guidance says pregnant women without symptoms can be offered testing between two to 12 weeks after travel”.
The virus is thought to remain in an infected person’s blood for a week or less.
Video: Watch the news conference on the local Zika case with this story at mystatesman.com.
In 2008, two scientists returned to Colorado after months of field work in Senegal, where they’d been bitten by Aedes aegypti, the species of mosquito that transmits Zika virus. That could change when the weather gets warmer. Thousands of babies have been born in Zika-affected regions with the birth defect microcephaly (although a causal relationship has not yet been scientifically established). The exception is a case in Dallas in which it appears a person became infected after having sex with a person who fell ill after traveling to South America.
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There is no treatment or vaccine for Zika.
