At the briefing we heard not only from Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, but representatives from the National Institutes for Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is already working on “target product profiles” to identify the best characteristics for each tool, such as what type of vaccine would be best for women of childbearing age, Kieny said.
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More than 220,000 soldiers are being deployed across Brazil to warn people about the risks of the Zika virus.
Of people infected with the Zika virus, 80 percent do not have any symptoms.
Masood said there was no vaccine so far to prevent Zika. The biggest task, she said, will be for companies to ensure an adequate reference method when generating their data, so that test performance can be assessed independently.
“That figure does not represent the scope we think Zika has”. “Public health labs could be rapidly overwhelmed, so hospital and commercial labs must be ready soon to meet the demand for clinical testing”. But test results made known this week confirmed traces of Zika in the woman’s blood.
There is no treatment or vaccine available for Zika infection.
“We had said, ‘Perhaps it is just during the acute infection.’ Well, that is obviously not the case”.
On Thursday authorities reported a third adult death in Brazil with possible links to Zika: a 20-year-old woman who died last April in Rio Grande do Norte state after being hospitalized with a severe respiratory problems. Yet there are still more questions than answers over the effects it could have.
Castro, who will be traveling to the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia to oversee the “Zero Zika” campaign there, called on his compatriots to join the battle to eliminate Zika.
Zika is suspected to be linked to birth defects. The agency reports 86 cases of GBS in five weeks and this is three times higher than the expected cases of the six previous years. The condition is an autoimmune disorder, and might be associated with the virus.
Doctors can perform ultrasounds between the 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy to try to determine if a fetus has microcephaly, Hotez said.
Experts advise women who may consider traveling to effected areas that if they have fear then do not travel, but they should be okay. Zika is suspected of causing a devastating birth defect, babies born with abnormally small heads, and pregnant Americans are urged to avoid travel to affected areas.
Planning is underway for a Zika virus tabletop exercise to ensure Ohio’s preparedness at the local and state levels prior to the 2016 mosquito season, which runs from May to October, ODH said.
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The Wall Street Journal also reported, Wednesday, that a study in the New England Journal of Medicine has also discovered new evidence that connects Zika virus to microcephaly.
