While Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness employees work around the clock to pre-treat and test the mosquito population in prone areas, officials say it’s critical that residents are responsible for around their home.
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Microcephaly was detected in the unidentified fetus during pregnancy and the fetus was “turned over”, the Associated Press reports, to USA health officials where it tested positive for Zika. Rius declined to say whether the woman had an abortion or miscarried, but said the microcephaly was diagnosed through a sonogram. “This fetus was determined to have severe microcephaly and intracranial calcifications, which is what you tend to see with these cases”, Rivera said. It said the case was detected early through “robust surveillance systems”.
Local and state authorities said Friday that there is a way to prevent mosquitoes, and possibly the Zika virus, from spreading.
The U.S territory has over 900 confirmed cases of the virus including over 100 in pregnant women.
With no vaccine available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people in Zika zones to avoid mosquito bites (easier said than done, as we Floridians can attest). The CDC announced last month that a 70-year-old Puerto Rican man died from complications of the Zika virus in February.
Zika’s known to cause a range of birth defects, including devastating brain damage that results in a smaller-than-normal head, a condition known medically as microcephaly.
With rising temperatures in the weeks ahead, USA health officials and organizations are warning about expected local outbreaks in the south and southwest. Although symptoms of Zika are usually not severe – primarily rash, fever and aches – the risks to pregnant women, their babies, as well as adults have left the public concerned about how to stay safe as the vacation season ramps up. “As summer approaches, there is a very real threat that Zika virus could gain a foothold in the United States”.
As a precaution, pregnant women should consider postponing non-essential travel to countries with ongoing outbreaks.
The government’s Zika response includes efforts to suppress the mosquitoes that can spread the virus and rapid response teams to tackle an outbreak of multiple cases. The spread of the virus in Mexico, which has reported 272 cases, has local and state officials in Texas on high alert, according to the article. Before 2007, at least 14 cases of Zika had been documented, although other cases were likely to have occurred and were not reported. PAHO has been instrumental in assisting us in our response and we still have in stock right now some mosquito nets from our previous chikungunya response which we are utilizing in our hospitals in the treatment and management of patients who are ill and admitted from vector related diseases.
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Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said this week that Puerto Rico “is on the precipice of a really serious disaster”. In the other, a Finnish woman living in Washington, D.C. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says it’s only a matter of time before the US experiences outbreaks.
