MANILA- A minister in the Philippines has urged women to delay pregnancy until more is known about the mosquito-borne Zika virus raging in Latin America, even though the Asian country’s only reported case of zika was four years ago.
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On Monday, an outspoken Roman Catholic bishop accused the health minister of using the scare over Zika to suggest people practice family planning.
Earlier, Noronha’s team at the PUC-Parana University was the first to discover Zika in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women – raising alarm over a link between the virus and microcephalic babies, who are born with damaged brains and abnormally small heads. When the mosquito is released into the wild and mates with a female – always of the same species – the deadly transgene is passed on and the offspring dies.
The WHO said its Vector Control Advisory Group recommended further field trials of the technique, following promising previous tests in the Cayman Islands.
Last month, British biotech firm Oxitec said tests in Brazil in 2015 showed that genetically altered sterile male mosquitoes succeeded in reducing a type of disease-spreading mosquito larvae by 82 percent in one neighborhood in the city of Piracicaba.
Environmentalists have previously criticized the genetically modified approach, saying it’s impossible to know the long-term effects of wiping out an entire insect population. In addition to mosquito bites, “Sexual transmission of Zika virus from a male partner is possible”, the CDC warns. “But there’s no way of knowing that for sure”. Researchers have confirmed more than 460 of these cases as microcephaly and identified evidence of Zika infection in 41 of them.
Spokeswoman Chaib said scientists at World Health Organization and elsewhere had rejected any such link.
Brazil is investigating more than 4,300 suspected cases of microcephaly.
Noting that Zika is not likely to spread considering the climate conditions of Russia, Rospotrebnadzor said the situation remains under control.
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He was joined at that conference by two government experts who echoed his call for the federal government to be proactive in combating the deadly disease before any massive outbreaks erupt over the summer.
