“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”.
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Brigina Kemp, a top health official in the Brazilian city of Campinas, said yesterday that a gunshot victim and a transplant patient each tested positive for Zika after receiving blood transfusions from different donors. Many countries’ national laboratories are relying on older strains from outbreaks in the Pacific and Africa, the AP found.
The current Zika outbreak started in Brazil in the spring of 2015.
Paulo Gadelha says that the virus’s ability to infect other people through the two body fluids requires further study.
The mosquito behind the Zika virus seems to operate like a heat-driven missile of disease. “Because how can they ask those women not to become pregnant but also not offer them first information that is available, but the possibility to stop their pregnancies if they wish?”
The case seemed to confirm two earlier scientific reports suggesting sexual transmission of Zika is possible although considered rare. However, the virus is transmitted to people primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito.
Brazil is now investigating 3,600 suspected cases of microcephaly in babies linked to the Zika virus.
Abranches said she could not provide more details on what the changes might look like or comment on whether Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff would enact the decree.
Yesterday Florida, a major tourist destination for Britons, declared a health emergency over the virus after nine cases were detected there, Mail Online reported.
Although the fetus reportedly is OK in this case, the virus can cause infant microcephaly, an abnormally small head connected with an undeveloped brain.
All of those who were diagnosed with the virus contracted it while traveling outside the country, in areas where transmission of the Zika virus is continuing, Scott said.
“Most of the babies we are seeing, if we test them for the virus, the genetic material for the virus is not there”, said Schuler-Faccini.
“That fact that the virus was found with the capacity to cause infection is not proof that it can contaminate other people through those fluids”, said Myrna Bonaldo, one of the scientists who made the discovery.
The Department for Health said the precautions – known as “disinsection” – already occur on many flights from the region as a precaution against mosquito-bourne malaria.
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“Deficiencies (with) existing data-sharing mechanisms (have) brought the question of data access to the forefront of the global health agenda”, the United Nations health agency said in a tweet.
