“An unexpected outbreak of dengue fever in the middle of Tokyo in 2014 is a classic case of a virus becoming active over time”, he said. Right now Florida has 448 kits to test people who currently have the virus, and the Governor is authorizing the Department of Health to purchase 4,000 more.
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Buying was also spurred by an increase in cases of dengue, another virus spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
So far, Florida’s Zika cases have been restricted to people who recently returned from travel to Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia or El Salvador.
The mosquitoes which transfer the virus are inactive in winter temperatures, although they can of course spread via humans who are infected in tropical climates before returning home.
Since 2012, 23 cases have been reported in Australia and all were contracted overseas.
“How can they … not offer (women) … the possibility to stop their pregnancies if they wish?” she said.
Again, the symptoms are mild for most people who are not pregnant, and typically do not require a hospital visit. At the meeting, Dr. Alberto Diaz Quiñonez, deputy general director of the Mexican Institute for Diagnostic and Epidemiology, shared that Mexico has only 34 confirmed cases of the Zika virus, representing just 0.03 percent of the total cases reported globally.
“Pregnant women should consider avoiding travel to countries with the Zika virus – or if travel is unavoidable, they ought to seek travel health advice from their GP or a travel clinic well in advance of their trip”. Officials said they determined that one of the people whose donated blood was used in the transfusion had been infected with Zika.
The symptoms of Zika virus infection is similar to that of dengue fever; it is carried by the same species of mosquitoes-the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes-that cause dengue.
“So that also shows that many of these pregnancies are out of their control and countries obviously have to take that into account”, she said. The second test determines if a person has had the Zika virus. Expanded testing will also give scientists a better understanding of the Zika virus, for which little data now exists.
It is unclear whether in pregnant women the virus crosses the placenta and causes microcephaly. It said men with a pregnant partner who live in or have travelled to an area of active Zika transmission and their partner should consistently and correctly use condoms during sex or abstain for the duration of the pregnancy.
The Wadsworth Center in Albany is already testing symptomatic New Yorkers who have recently traveled to affected areas but due to concerns regarding birth defects associated with Zika virus, DOH will expand testing to all symptomatic and asymptomatic pregnant women with recent travel history.
The unpublished evidence, which suggests the need to investigate the relevance of these alternative routes of virus transmission was observed by Flavivirus of Molecular Biology Laboratory of the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC / Fiocruz).
Brazil’s first case was recorded in the middle of previous year, and the disease quickly spread across country and to more than 20 nations in the region, the Caribbean and beyond, leading the World Health Organization this week to declare an global emergency.
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The National Conference of Bishops in Brazil, the South American country hardest hit by Zika, had no immediate comment on calls to loosen abortion laws.
