The ministry said last week that 41 of the confirmed cases of microcephaly had shown links to Zika infection.
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These initial projections of the economic impact of the disease are based on the expectation of “a swift, well-coordinated global response to the Zika virus” and on the assumption that the most significant health risks are for pregnant women, the bank noted.
One reported GBS case has been linked to Zika in Puerto Rico, which the CDC described in a recent report.
“Questions that we urgently need to answer include what is the added risk of microcephaly if a woman has Zika virus infection in pregnancy, is the timing of infection during pregnancy important, and does Zika virus infection alone cause this birth defect or is a co-factor involved”.
The World Health Organization has said that Canada is one of the few countries in the Americas where the virus is unlikely to spread.
Pregnant women are covered with mosquito nets at the Women National Hospital in an effort to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes that might carry Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya viruses, in San Salvador, El Salvador February 5, 2016.
Zika virus cases are being reported in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Africa and elsewhere.
“We have no doubt that the epidemic of microcephaly that we are seeing in Brazil is caused by the Zika virus outbreak”, Castro told reporters on the sidelines of Thursday’s meeting.
At the same time, the FDA has also stated that it will issue direction on the donation of human cells, tissues and products made using them.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended people who have had potential exposure to Zika put off donating blood for at least four weeks.
There is no treatment for Zika, which had been viewed as a relatively mild illness until the concerns over microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome emerged.
For more on Zika virus, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of the total reported on Wednesday, Brazil said 508 cases of microcephaly have been confirmed, while 3,935 are still being investigated.
The virus has also been linked to – but not proven to cause – microcephaly, a birth defect that causes newborns to have small heads and other neurological disorders.
“We can assume that they were most likely mosquito-borne, but they were all contracted [outside] the country, not local transmission”, Philpott said.
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Health officials and physicians in Southern Vermont and the Berkshires are urging precaution over panic against the risk of contracting the Zika virus that is now affecting more Americans – especially pregnant women traveling overseas.
