David Heymann, who chairs the WHO’s Emergency Committee on the epidemic, said on Friday that the Zika pandemic remains to be in emergency level and warned that the virus is spreading out to new countries throughout the world.
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“Certainly we feel fairly confident that the risk assessment that there would be no significant increased transmission due to the Olympics is very much on track”, Peter Salama, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said after the meeting.
Dr. David Heymann, the committee’s chair, said Friday that considerable gaps remain in understanding Zika and the complications it causes – including babies with serious neurological problems – and World Health Organization concluded that the outbreak remains a global emergency.
Tests have found the Zika virus in mosquitoes from Miami, the first detected on continental United States, confirming local transmission of the disease, the Florida authorities said.
A pest control worker fumigates drains and the gardens at a local housing estate in Singapore where the latest case of Zika infections were reported September 1.
The developments came as a new study released Thursday identified eight countries in Asia and Africa that researchers say are at the greatest risk of Zika virus transmission.
More than two billion people could be at risk from Zika virus outbreaks in parts of Africa and Asia, according to scientists writing in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The state has already seen more than 150 people test positive for Zika, with two pregnant women amongst them.
The mosquitoes were trapped in the same area where several cases of human infection have occurred, officials said.
WHO meanwhile said Friday that Zika is still a public health emergency, reiterating its February position.
The Zika virus was first detected in a small area of northern Miami in July. This suggests that Zika-infected babies who don’t have obvious initial symptoms may develop problems as they grow.
The DOH reiterated that Zika virus infection was actually mild compared with dengue.
A third of people surveyed in the poll believe Congress should make approving more funds to combat Zika a top priority.
Couples should abstain or wear condoms for eight weeks if either partner has traveled to a country with a Zika outbreak, regardless of whether they have symptoms.
In the absence of any effective treatments or vaccines for the disease- and given past failures to wipe out the mosquitoes that mostly spread Zika – Heymann said it will largely be up to individuals to avoid infection. And women who might become pregnant need full access to birth control, they both added.
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The best-case scenario “would be the existence of previously unknown widespread Zika virus immunity in Asia and Africa”, wrote Abraham Goorhuis and Martin Grobusch of the Center of Tropical Medicine and Travel Medicine at the University of Amsterdam.
