Ever since Zika started spreading across the Western Hemisphere, experts have focused on the threat posed by mosquitoes – which is by far the most likely way to come down with the infection. The agency asked donors who give blood and subsequently develop symptoms consistent with Zika within 14 days to notify the Red Cross so the product can be quarantined.
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A Brazilian health workers union has called off a strike because it could affect the country’s battle against the fast-spreading Zika virus. As we are learning more about it -we are also finding out that it can be transmitted during intercourse. There is no vaccine or specific medicine to treat Zika virus infections.
Gundersen’s Dr. McNamara confirmed that assessment, saying, “The real risk is mainly for an unborn fetus and a malformed brain”. She did not provide any other details.
“We have to wait for more scientific evidence”, said Cuitlahuac Ruiz, director of epidemiology at the Mexican health ministry.
“Brazil is in a particularly hard position” given the scope of the country’s microcephaly outbreak, she said.
“I would like to bet money on the fact that we will see locally-acquired cases”, says Dr. Amy Vittor, an internist and public health researcher who studies tropical diseases at the University of Florida. “Women should be able to have an abortion if they want”.
Pouilly said that about a quarter of women had experienced physical or sexual violence in El Salvador in the past year.
Etienne said her organization provided $850,000 to help countries fight Zika but that 10 times that amount would be needed. Pouilly said that safe abortion services should be provided to the full extent of the law.
Spokesman Farhan Haq says Ban Ki-moon believes that “women must have a meaningful way of controlling their own decisions on whether and when and how to be pregnant”. It has now spread to more than 20 countries.
Meanwhile, in the first case of its kind in Europe, Spain’s health ministry said a pregnant woman who had returned from Colombia had been diagnosed with the virus.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of NY expanded free testing for Zika on Thursday to include all pregnant women who have traveled to affected regions and issued a statewide health advisory to coordinate efforts against the disease.
“Is there a chance for the virus to get into semen or the actual canal of a woman to where it can be transmitted sexually into body fluids?” said Solla.
Complicating the situation, also on Thursday, Brazilian officials said two people contracted the virus through blood transfusions, the first reports of such transmission in an outbreak that is projected to infect millions in the coming months.
The CDC said the link between Zika virus and severe birth defects is growing stronger by the day. Several Latin American nations have urged women to postpone pregnancies.
Hawaii health officials have also said a baby recently born with microcephaly at an Oahu hospital was infected with the virus in utero.
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Luciana D’Angelo, executive secretary for health surveillance for the Pernambuco state government, says the latest test results “strengthen the hypothesis that there is a relationship between Zika and microcephaly”.
