With authorities in Florida recently confirming that mosquitoes in the Miami area are spreading the Zika virus locally, it is good news to many states that their mosquito seasons are winding down, including North Carolina’s.
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Photograph by James Gathany, Center for Disease Control Public Health Image Library.
Seventy countries and territories have reported local mosquito-borne Zika transmission, with Brazil by far the hardest hit. “To date, there have been no reports of confirmed cases of Zika virus among people who attended the Games, both during the games and since their return”, World Health Organization said in a statement. Experts are saying that the Zika virus in Singapore likely evolved from Southeast Asia and not from South America.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) is reviewing the practice of isolating potential Zika-infected patients, a senior official said on Sunday.
Populations in India, Indonesia and Nigeria are some of the most vulnerable to transmission, the researchers said.
Malaysia yesterday confirmed its first locally transmitted case of Zika infection in a man living in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah.
One of the biggest problems was the Zika virus, which appeared in the country past year.
In the latest study, Mariana Leal of the Hospital Agamenon Magalhães and colleagues in Brazil examined records from 70 infants with microcephaly whose mothers had laboratory-confirmed Zika infections during pregnancy. “They were infected in endemic countries”, she reportedly said.
But Filipino travellers should still take “extra precautions while staying in Zika-affected countries”, Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said. They said the disease was probably becoming endemic in a number of countries.
Though not common, people with the virus can experience symptoms of fever, rash, joint pain, headache and red eyes.
Zika is carried by mosquitoes, which transmit the virus to humans, but a small number of cases of sexual transmission have been reported in the USA and elsewhere.
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Zika virus infections in pregnant women are directly linked to fetal deaths and microcephaly, a birth defect that causes babies to have abnormally small heads, according to the CDC.
