Bernhard Schwartlander, the World Health Organization representative in Beijing, said imported cases of Zika in China are to be expected given the frequency of travel between the country and South America. As for women who plan to become pregnant in the future, Dr. Frieden says, “if this behaves like other viruses, infection with Zika before pregnancy would not have an impact on subsequent pregnancies”.
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“I know that the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil is of concern to many of you”, Blackmun wrote.
The state Health Minister Jill Hennessy confirmed the case to reporters on Friday.
The disease causes a range of symptoms including joint pain and high fevers.
But tests for this more fatal disease which kills hundreds in Brazil each year, proved negative, leading to the patient being positively tested for Zika. But most people experience no symptoms or very mild one, and the antibody test used to tell afterward if they were infected isn’t very accurate. CDC has confirmed a US case of Zika virus infection in a non-traveler after the person’s sexual partner returned from an affected country and developed symptoms. Because of confidentiality with health matters, officials said they could not identify the patient or say whether it was a man or woman. The CDC did not say where the women lived or where specifically they had traveled.
Scientists are now working to develop a vaccine, but it will likely be months if not years before it’s available.
“We’ve definitely gone back to the drawing board on that”, she said, referring to the island, which is on the Centres of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warning list. “In Yolo, we don’t have the kind of mosquito that spreads that virus”. The news comes days after officials said that a pregnant woman in the northern state of Queensland tested positive Tuesday.
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U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who incidentally was at a hearing today about President Barack Obama’s request for $1.8 billion to fight Zika, said in a statement she’s “deeply concerned” about the spread of the virus.
