The Caribbean island and USA territory has reported 10,690 laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika, including 1,035 pregnant women.
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Zika – a virus spread to people primarily through the bite of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes – is causing concerns in many countries and territories around the world.
The health district advised pregnant women to postpone traveling to areas where the Zika virus is spreading, and pregnant women who traveled to the areas to contact a doctor.
Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that can cause birth defects and is particularly unsafe for pregnant women.
“The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental (appropriation) has forced the administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to avoid these delays”, Burwell said in a letter to Congress.
Harlin said the Wynwood area – where 25 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus have been discovered – was an important part their mission to bring their product to the public.
“One of the biggest things about Zika virus is that it’s predominately found in South America”, Loewen said.
The Zika virus usually produces only mild symptoms – including a fever, rash and pink eye – in adults.
In the continental United States, Florida is the first state to report local transmission.
The declaration was made by US Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell at the request of Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla.
It also allows Puerto Rico to temporarily reassign public health workers funded through Public Health Service Act programmes to assist in the Zika response. A full list of countries where the disease can be transmitted is available at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
“Zika poses a hidden threat to future generations of Puerto Ricans, and I feel the responsibility to do everything in my power to fight the spread of it”, he said. Texas recently experienced its first Zika-related death in an infant that was born with microcephaly due to the virus. The action gives the government access to additional funding to fight Zika as congressional efforts to allocate money remain stalled.
Zika was first detected in Brazil previous year, and has since spread rapidly through South America and the Caribbean.
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Rebecca Gilman said it is Canada’s second case of maternal-to-fetal transmission of the virus, which has been linked to serious birth defects that include microcephaly, where babies are born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains to mothers who were infected while pregnant.
