According to the news agency, the strategy in New York City against Zika virus spread patterns after the health program designed as a countermeasure against West Nile virus. “We’ve now confirmed what mounting evidence has suggested, affirming our early guidance to pregnant women and their partners to take steps to avoid zika infection and to health care professionals who are talking to patients every day”.
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The person who tested positive, a male in his 60s, had recently traveled to Haiti, where there is active mosquito-borne transmission of Zika.
Zika is transmitted primarily through the bite of the aedes aegypti mosquito and health officials believe preventing bites is the best defense.
Zika can also be transmitted sexually, according to the BCCDC.
Zika usually causes nothing more than mild flu-like symptoms in otherwise healthy adults, but the virus is believed to cause a birth defect called microcephaly, identified by the poor development of the skulls in babies suffering from the malady.
USA health officials confirmed last week that Zika is a cause of birth defects, including microcephaly – a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. Since the outbreak in Brazil in 2014, Zika cases have been reported in over 30 countries and regions.
Researchers now also know the disease can spread through sexual contact.
“It would not be surprising at all, if not likely, that we’re going to see of a bit” of local Zika transmission, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told Fox News Sunday. In Puerto Rico’s case, funds – $250,000 of which goes to the university – will “increase the availability of family planning services and access to contraception for women and men during the Zika outbreak”.
Global map of areas susceptible to Zika virus transmission, based on temperature, rainfall, humidity, vegetation, and urban extentELIFE, J.
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Tweel said that, thus far, 700 cases of the illness, which can cause abnormalities in the developing fetus, have been diagnosed in US residents who have traveled overseas. That’s much more expensive than what experts say are more effective and important mosquito control efforts: wiping out potential breeding sites by eliminating pools of standing water. She says if that’s unavoidable, you must be aware of mosquito control, and do everything in your power to prevent exposure to mosquitoes.
