The apparent link between Zika and severe birth defects in children in Brazil still hasn’t been definitively proven but Chan says the threat is so high that she’s calling for an emergency committee to advise her on “the appropriate level of worldwide concern and for recommended measures that should be undertaken in affected countries and elsewhere”.
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USA researchers have blasted the World Health Organization for what they say has been a slow response, and some pressed the worldwide organization to declare a public health emergency before the mosquito-borne virus becomes an “explosive pandemic”.
What is microcephaly? Are pregnant women in danger of getting Zika? In a conference call with reporters on Friday, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention principal deputy director Anne Schuchat was asked about a recent New York Times report on the subject.
The disease has been mostly documented in South America, but it has spread to the U.S. Teresa Foo with the Department of Health and Environmental Control says common symptoms are usually fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes. If the mosquito bites an infected person, it can get the virus and then spread it to other people that it bites.
“As long as we don’t have a vaccine against Zika virus, the war must be focused on exterminating the mosquito’s breeding areas”, said President Dilma Rousseff.
The Western Hemisphere now has a virus to worry about – Zika – and it’s carried and spread by mosquitoes. “Somewhere along the course we hope to have big pockets join us”, Bogoch said.
“These babies have brain damage to differing degrees, which means inserting this generation into society is going to be very complicated”, said Angela Rocha from Oswaldo Cruz University Hospital in Brazil. There are real concerns that the Zika virus will also soon reach Asia.
Obama convened a meeting of senior health advisers to discuss the spread of the virus and its economic and developmental impact on the Americas.
The transmission of the Zika virus that’s making its way through Latin America and the Caribbean is likely here in the states, national health officials warned Thursday. It’s unclear exactly where all the locations in the U.S. are, because the CDC has declined to provide the locations of Zika cases in the U.S., Scientific American reported.
At a special meeting on Thursday, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said the virus – which has been linked to birth defects and neurological problems – was “spreading explosively”.
Chan and World Health Organization were sharply criticized for moving too slowly to address the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Hotez called for new studies on technologies – such as insecticides, genetically modified mosquitoes, bed net use and mass drug treatment with antiparasitic ivermectin – as potential ways to prevent the virus and kill the Aedes aegypti mosquito which carries it.
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There has been an alarming number of babies born in Brazil with microcephaly – a condition where the baby’s brain and skull are smaller than normal and in these cases can be severely disabling.
