As the global epidemic of Zika virus disease has unfolded and led to devastating birth defects for at least 1,300 children in eight countries, an agonizing question has persisted: What is the chance that an infected pregnant woman will have a baby with these defects?
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More than 60 countries and territories now have continuing Zika transmission.
Zika has been transmitted primarily by mosquitoes in South and Central America.
The Zika virus can be a cause of about 13% of birth defects, as reported by in The Verge.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe that once you get the virus, you can’t get it again.
“Infectious diseases that happen in other parts of the world, can happen in the United States, can happen in Arizona and we need to be prepared”, said Dr. Cara Christ, at the summit hosted by Arizona Department of Health Services.
Though both democrats and republicans both agree steps must be taken to confront the virus, the Obama Administration and republicans now disagree on whether the funding to combat the Zika virus is available.
Now, researchers at Stanford University have found another matter of concern related to the illness, when they found abnormal bleeding and lesions in the eyes of three infant boys whose mothers had caught Zika while pregnant.
Although Zika was first identified in a monkey in 1947, doctors first linked it to microcephaly only in 2015, after a large outbreak in Brazil.
The latest vision findings, published online May 25 in the journal Ophthalmology, add to a growing body of evidence about how Zika may affect children’s eye development and vision, the researchers said. They found sprays labeled as “natural” were not very effective. Researchers only detected the increase this year, after the Brazil epidemic prompted them to go back and take a closer look at women’s medical records.
So far, there have been 544 confirmed US cases of Zika, 17 of them in Maryland.
Today the University of Glasgow continues to undertake significant research into the Zika outbreak, including studying the virus, working on vaccines and examining the links between Zika and Guillain-Barre syndrome.
While there is nothing specific that any of us need do right now here in the United States to protect ourselves from the Zika virus, Welliver said keeping your yard free of standing water, which can serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, is always a good idea.
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Already, more than 7,000 larvicide tablets have been distributed to eliminate Aedes mosquitoes potentially carrying the virus.
