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Puerto Rico To See Thousands More Zika Cases — CDC

Infants with microcephaly have smaller than normal heads and their brains do not develop properly.

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No information about the patient was immediately available.

The virus, once believed to have only mild symptoms, is suspected of causing serious birth defects, most notably in Brazil.

According to the CDC, the virus also has been reported in at least 31 other states.

The World Health Organization has declared the spread of Zika in the Americas a global emergency.

Health authorities in Puerto Rico are working with the CDC to identify pregnant women most at risk-those living in parts of the island where there is active transmission-and provide window screens for their homes.

The top doctor at the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention predicted Thursday that hundreds of thousands of people will contract the Zika virus in Puerto Rico this year, including “thousands” of pregnant women.

“We are finding widespread resistance to some insecticides”, said Frieden.

Puerto Rico halted all blood donations last month and began buying blood from the Red Cross to prevent potential contamination, following recommendations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency’s Fort Collins, Colorado, office also has stopped working on some new tick-borne viruses to focus on Zika, Frieden said. “We can not do what needs to be done in a sustained way without those resources”, he said. But unless Congress approves the funds, health officials may not have enough money to put together a Phase 2 trial right away, and the entire process may take longer to complete, he said.

Latin America is far away from Malaysia, but the virus might be able to jump the geographic barrier given a chance.

The government Friday revised its Zika travel warnings, saying it’s OK for pregnant women to travel to Mexico City and other places at high elevation in outbreak regions.

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There is now no vaccine for the Zika virus, and affected countries are focusing on wiping out mosquito populations in an effort to curb its spread.

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen at the Laboratory of Entomology and Ecology of the Dengue Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan