Additional details about the infected residents are being withheld to protect their privacy, according to state officials, but it was confirmed yesterday that one resident was a Lehigh University student. In response to the growing threat, the World Health Organization declared an worldwide public health emergency.
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A separate team led by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on tests on two newborns with microcephaly who died within 20 hours after birth, and two miscarriages.
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine is bolstering a potential link between Zika and microcephaly, a rare birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. Zika virus symptoms include fever, rash, muscle pain, joint pain, pain behind eyes and headache.
Providers at WellSpan are initiating the conversation with pregnant patients from that community. Dr. Michael Greene of Massachusetts General Hospital says that these findings will be helpful, but there are more unanswered questions about the link between Zika and microcephaly. A post-abortion autopsy found the Zika virus in the fetus’ brain but, remarkably, no other organs, reported researchers from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.
“They told us to be ready and they’re going to use some of the money that’s going to be appropriated, to begin pushing new vaccine candidates into the markets”, Lillibridge said.
The Zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus, has minimal symptoms in adults but can be a risk to pregnant women. Though the virus has spread across South and Central America and the Caribbean there is yet to be any similar spike in microcephaly cases in other countries to compare to that witnessed in Brazil.
Consumer Reports tested a number of insect repellents for their effectiveness against the Aedes mosquito, the type of mosquito known to transmit Zika.
Officials wouldn’t disclose whether the infected Cleveland woman was pregnant.
The duo urged the public not to panic about the virus, but to also seek information from government health agencies.
The CDC said the precaution is in place “until we know more” about the dangers of sexual transmission of the virus. “If the Olympics were today, I would not go”, she said.
Hughes said he had been contacted by several Australia athletes and officials in the past several days over the Zika virus, but none had indicated they would not travel to Brazil in August.
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Meanwhile, some visitors to the area are concerned whether those who are infected even know it – and how the state will keep track of new cases coming in.
