The health ministry of Brazil will release a smartphone app dedicated to helping visitors of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this summer keep track of and prevent the mosquito-borne Zika virus. “That means making sure they are preparing to monitor and respond”, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden.
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He said the time has come to start reviewing the legislation and think about the long-term effects of a foetus affected by Zika. He said the Zika virus is not circulating in San Mateo County, and, so far, the confirmed cases in California were all contracted overseas. There isn’t. Four out of 10 did not realize the virus can be sexually transmitted. Overall, 27 of the infected individuals were pregnant women.
“There are many things at this summit that will be decided, determined, and moved forward in terms of state and localities doing more”, he said.
The hope is those resources will come in the form of $1.9 billion in emergency funding President Obama requested from Congress in February.
Thomas Frieden said health departments need to take a “four corners approach”, targeting the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes indoors and outdoors as well as focusing on killing both larvae and adult insects.
The latest scientific knowledge about the Zika virus, its effects on pregnant women, and mosquito control practices were shared during the summit.
Most mosquito abatement efforts in US states target nuisance mosquitoes, those that bite at dusk and ruin picnics and barbecues but pose little public health threat. Several reports have linked Zika in mothers with microcephaly in infants. Through their collaboration with the CDC Foundation, SC Johnson’s support of today’s Summit is part of an ongoing commitment to provide information and at least $15 million in product to help protect families from the Zika virus. There have been 312 confirmed cases of Zika virus disease in the continental U.S.as of March 30, according to the CDC.
As that virus looms, the White House says it will not short-change efforts to fully stamp out Ebola, which has killed more than 11,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since December 2013.
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“The money we have is not enough”. Zika infections have been implicated as a cause of microcephaly and severe congenital deformities when pregnant women have been infected. Dallas County Health Department Director Zachary Thompson said his workers are going door to door to get the word out. Puerto Rico, a US territory, has already experienced hundreds of locally acquired cases of Zika, which Frieden believes could expand to hundreds of thousands of cases by the end of 2016.
